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e 
CHRISTIAN EVIDENCES, DOCTRINES 
AND MORALS 


VOLUME IX. 


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ny this Volume fresh contributions are made to the 
branches of the Present Day Series, devoted to evolu- 
tionary speculation, comparative religion, and the place 
and claims of Christ. Two Tracts on questions relating to 
the Lord’s Day, and one Tract on the Conflict with Unbelief 
generally appear. Dr. Cairns shows, in a very convincing 
manner, the incredibility of the various attempts that have 
been made to trace Christianity to a merely natural origin. 
Mr. Lewis shows how Revelation and Science concur in 
establishing the claim of Christ to be the Crown of the Past 
and the Key of the Future, and draws the inference that 
He is moreover the Creator of all. 


Dr. Murray Mitchell treats the subject of ancient, but 
now extinct religions, and shows the unique position held 
by the Jewish religion among ancient forms of belief, and 
the relation of Judaism to Christianity. 


The Tracts on the Lord’s Day are by Sir Wiliam 
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v1 Preface. 


of Christ’s resurrection on the continuous observance of 
this day by Christians from the very beginning. 


The Editor of the Series gives a bird's-eye view of the 
whole conflict, the spirit of the combatants, the attitude of 
the different classes of opponents to Christianity, the chief 
points of attack and defence, and glances at the nearer 
and more remote issues of the conflict. The references 
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Two of the writers, Mr. Lewis and Mr. Kelly, contribute 
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expectation of still fuller and wider blessing upon it. 


October, 1887 


CONTENTS. 
“Sse ete 


XLIX. 
IS THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY FROM MERE 


NATURAL SOURCES CREDIBLE ? 
By tux Rey. PRINCIPAL CAIRNS, D.D. LL.D. 


me 
THE DAY OF REST IN RELATION TO THE WORLD 
THAT NOW IS AND THAT WHICH IS TO COME. 
By Sir J. WILLIAM DAWSON, C.M.G., LL.D., F.R.S. 


Lt. 


CHRISTIANITY AND ANCIENT PAGANISM. 
By J. MURRAY MITCHELL, M.A., LL.D. 


: Lil. 
CHRIST AND CREATION: A TWO-SIDED QUEST. 
By THE Rev. W. SUNDERLAND LEWIS, M.A. 


¢ 


Ll. 
THE PRESENT CONFLICT WITH UNBELIEF: A SURVEY 


AND A FORECAST, 
By THE Rev. JOHN KELLY 


LIV. 


THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE OF THE OBSERVANCE OF 
THE LORD’S DAY. 
By THE Rev. G. F. MACLEAR, D.D. 


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IS THE 


EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY 


MERE NATURAL SOURCES CREDIBLE? 


BY THE 


REV. JOHN CAIRNS, D.D. 


Argument of the Cract, 


eormme QUI NR te 


‘THE main sources to which evolutionary speculation traces 
Christianity are examined, and it is shown that it cannot be 
derived from Greek philosophy, because the resemblances 
between Christianity and Platonism are found chiefly in that 
which is not peculiar to Christianity ; that they, taken as a 
whole, amount only to the theistic and ethical pre-suppositions 
of Christianity ; because the distinctive doctrines of Christianity 
are not to be found in Platonism,—the Incarnation has no 
place in it,—the Atonement is not foreshadowed in it,—the 
doctrine of grace, especially in regeneration, has no forecast in 
it,—there is no Holy Spirit, and so no provision for the new 
birth as the beginning of the kingdom of God in it; nor does 
Platonism contain any foresight of the life and work of such a 
Saviour as enters into the substance of Christianity. 

It is further shown that Christianity cannot be derived in a 
‘merely human and natural way from the whole of Jewish 
literature, including the Old Testament, the Apocrypha, and 
the Talmud, taken together as a mere human formation. ‘The 
system of Strauss is examined, as the most celebrated discus- 
sion of this question in recent controversy. 

Its inadequacy is shown, because the scheme credited by 
Strauss is not Christianity in the proper sense. The Christ 
of Strauss is incongruous—a defective moral teacher, with a 
sense of failure and shortcoming toward God, yet capable of 
aspiring to do the work of a Messiah. Strauss’s theory of 
Christianity subsequent to the point at which Christ left it is 
proved to be artificial, inadequate, and inconsistent. 

It is shown also that Christianity cannot be derived from 
the Hellenic Judaism of Alexandria, of which Philo is taken 
as the representative ; because the doctrine of the Messiah in 
the teaching of Philo bears no proportion to its place in the 
Old Testament ; because the doctrine of Atonement is almost 
wholly lacking ; because Philo’s doctrine of the Logos in rela- 
tion to God is wavering and uncertain, and the relation of the 
Logos to redemption is very scantily set forth by Philo. 

The hopelessness of the failure of the most plausible natural- 
istic theories of the origin of Christianity, and the unique and 
impregnable position of Christianity is pointed out. 


[S THE EVOLUTION OF CHRISTIANITY FROM 
MERE NATURAL SOURCES CREDIBLE ? 


—S1FPeir— 


re ce Lace eta a 


vow @ ELIEF in Kvolution asa principleof natural 
i = é science has recently made rapid progress 
59 44| and has been supposed to be capable of 
solving the greatest physical difficulties. 

Its range has hardly yet been made so extensive in 
the spiritual world; and it is rather in the adven- 
turous way in which old problems are dealt with, 
than in any absolute novelty of method, that any 
change is visible. It has always been felt to be 
necessary to give some plausible account of the origin 
of Christianity short of its divinity. The genesis of 
systems is a part of history; and if history by the 
application of its ordinary methods cannot explain 
this religion, as it does all others, on mere natural 
- principles, it must recognise a miracle. Has this 
task then, on the anti-supernatural side, been ac- 
complished? If so, out of what pre-existing 
materials did Christianity by a natural process of 
development arise? This is the subject of the 
present Tract, which takes up an inquiry at this 
_ day exciting more attention than ever before, and 


Progress of 
the prin- 
ciple of 
Evolution. 


The genesi# 
of systems 


ao 


Has 

Christianit 
een 

accounted 


or by 
evolution 7 


4 


Is the Evolution of Christianity from 


a 


The various 
schemes of 
derivation. 


Greek 
philosophy. 


Pre-existing 
Jewish 
theology 


morality. 


Philonism, 


Alleged 
derivation 
from Greek 
philosophy. 


gives reasons for holding that Christianity cannot 
be explained by any natural development. 

In discussing the subject we shall refer to the 
various schemes of derivation; and then, on the 
ordinary principles of historical criticism, seek to 
test their sufficiency. 

The main fountain-heads then to which specula- 
tions of this kind have endeavoured to trace up 
Christianity have been Greek philosophy, especially 
that of Plato; pre-existing Jewish theology and 
morality, especially the so-called Messianic pro- 
phecies of the Jewish faith ; and the combination 
of Greek and Jewish elements found in Alexandrine 
thought, especially as reflected in Philo. It will 
be to a brief examination of these sources and 
tendencies of belief and opinion, in the light of a 
possible derivation of Christianity from them, that 
this inquiry will be directed. We shall endeavour, 
without unfaithfulness to the conditions of strict 


inquiry, and also of intelligible exposition, to — 


convey the results in a brief sketch. 


CHRISTIANITY NOT DERIVED FROM GREEK 
PHILOSOPHY. 


I. Can we find then as the result of our first 
alleged origin, that Christianity can be historically 
derived from Greek philosophy, and as the question 
can hardly be proposed in regard to any other 


EEO OU 


Mere Natural Sources Credible ? 


system, specially from that of Plato (B.c. 429-347)? 
This is anything but a new suggestion. In point 
of fact, in the first recorded encounter of Greek 
- unbelief with Christianity, the Adyoc AAySie (“True 
Word”) of Celsus, preserved and replied to by 
Origen, and written near the end of the second 
century, the assertion is made and supported by 
instances, that Christianity is drawn from Platonism. 
It is not wonderful that Celsus, who understood 
Christianity very ill, supports this argument but 
feebly, and that Origen has no difficulty in replying 
to him, in his sixth book, where this discussion 
occurs. Thus, for example, among other things 
Celsus argues that Christ took his celebrated saying, 
‘Tt is easier for a camel to go through the eye of 
a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the 
kingdom of God,” from the utterance of Plato in 
the fifth book of his Laws, “ That for one who is 
very good also to be very rich is impossible.” To 
which Origen answers, that the point of the remark 
is greatly weakened in Plato by the absence of the 
camel, and also that it does not belong to so strict 
a system as that which laid stress generally on the 
strait gate and the narrow way. We learn also 
from this work of Origen that reprisals had already 
been made on the Platonic philosophy by Christian 
writers, who traced it back to Hebrew sources, 
which Plato is supposed to have studied in Egypt ; 
and while Origen, who does not dissent from this 


The 
assertion 
of Celsua. 


The reply 
of Origen, 


Reprisals of 
Christian 
writers who 
traced 
Platonic 
philosophy 
to Hebrew 
sources, 


6 Is the Evolution of Christianity from 


view, does not practically apply it, we find that it 
had been attempted at some length before him in 
a hortatory treatise addressed to the Gentiles 
(Cohortatio ad Gentiles), which has often passed 
under the name of Justin Martyr, and in which 
Plato’s Plato is charged with borrowing his distinction 


distinction 


between 3 
Reine that Detween Being that 7s only and never becomes 


Paae’* from the name of Jehovah, “I AM THAT I AM,” 


said to be . she . : 
borrowed and also with deriving his “ideas” from the 
from Moses, 


pattern showed to Moses in the mount. 
Eusebius As the summing up of this discussion, in the 


derives 


from the, early period of Christianity, we may mention the 


Scriptures, elaborate effort of the Church Historian Eusebius, 
in his great work entitled The Gospel Preparation 
—the fullest dissertation on the relations of Chris 
tianity to Paganism and philosophy which has 


come down from antiquity, and written in the first 


quarter of the fourth century,—in which three . 


books, x. x1. and xu.., are devoted to the proof of 
the derivation of the Greek philosophy, and specially 
that of Plato from the Hebrew Scriptures. Here, 
however, as in the case of the so-called Justin, the 
plea for Plato’s dependence is carried too far, 
Re blance esemblance is not derivation, unless it be so 
sarily Striking as to necessitate the idea, and unless there 
fenvane™ be some reasonable hypothesis of contact. Now 
modern scholars are slow to admit any contact 
between Plato and Hebrew thought in Egypt. The 


whole scheme therefore stands or falls with re- 


ee we 


Mere Natural Sources Credible ? 


semblance; and the question between those who 
with Celsus deduce the Christian faith from Plato, 
and those who with the early Fathers reverse the 
process, is just this, Is the resemblance so close 
as to make the idea of derivation probable, or even 
irresistible? Something is to be said for and 
against either view; but it does not follow that 
either system must be derived from the other. 
Modern opinion, on the side alike of Christian and 
non-Christian thought, is against the derivation of 
Plato. Must it now be held, that we have to go 
back to Celsus, and accept the evolution from Plato 
of Christianity? <A brief statement of the balance, 
not merely as it appeared in those early days, but 
as it suggests itself now, after the conflicts and 
reactions of centuries, will assist in this decision. 
(1.) First, then, it must be said, that the resem- 
blance between Christianity and Platonism is mostly 
found in that which is not peculiar to Christianity, viz., 
natural religion and morality. Interpreters of all 
schools are in the main agreed, that in Plato, taking 
his undoubted works as a whole, the supremacy 
and unity of God are taught, though with accom- 
modations to polytheism ; that His natural attri- 
butes stand high ; and that His moral attributes of 
righteousness, and even of benignity, have greater 
prominence than in any other philusophical system. 
Further, that while creation in the proper sense is 
hardly asserted, and there is a dark background 


Modern 
opinion is 
against the 
derivation 
of Plato. 


Re- 
semblances 
between 
Christianity 
and Plato- 
nism not 
in the 
distinctive 
features of 
Christianity, 


Creation 
ardly 
asserted by 
Plato, 


a 


— 


A real 
beginning 
and effectual 
Providence 
recognised 
by Plato. 


The 

Platonic 
doctrine 
of man, 


Platonism 
could never 
have 
produced 
Christianity. 


At most it 
is only the 
theistic and 
ethical pre- 
papposton 


0 
Christianity. 


Is the Evolution of Christianity from 


out of which evil may arise, there is a real be- 
ginning of existing things due to the highest will 
and power, and followed by an effectual Providence 
which is moral in its character, and secures an 
administration of rewards and punishments, true 
in this life and perfect in the life to come. The 
Platonic doctrine of man is, that he is in his 
rational part an image of God and eternal, but 
through the mystery of union with the body, 
brought under the conditions of time and sense, s0 
that the contemplation and imitation of the Divine 
goodness and beauty by love and assimilation are 
interrupted; but that this still remains the highest 
good and duty, and may by the struggle of philo- 
sophy, embracing all virtues, and aided by death, 
which is the return to native immortality, be 
attained. ‘This is a rude outline, as all students 
of Plato will acknowledge. But it brings out the 
fact that this, so far as it goes, could never have 
created Christianity. Even some of the articles 
enumerated, such as sin and immortality, have 
another than Christian setting. But the whole 
taken tegether, even granting thatit was accurately 
reproduced in Christianity, is only the theistic and 
ethical pre-supposition of the Christian religion. 
It is no more a theory of the development of Chris- 
tianity out of Platonism, than it is of the develop- 
ment of any other form of monotheism. Nay, 
Mahommed could with far more ease have got all 


Mere Natural Sources Credible ? 


he wanted in Plato, than the alleged human 
authors of Christianity. 

(2.) Every attempt to find the distinctive doctrines 
of Christianity in Platonism ts a failure. The doc- 
trine of the Trinity has been most urged; but the 
resemblance is faint and vanishing. The Platonic 
Logos has no approach to the personality of the 
Fourth Gospel. It is only in the Epistles of Plato 
now generally rejected, that a distinction between 
a second and a third in relation to Deity is found, 
or that the word “Father,” in possible contrast to 
“Son” (which last word is not found), occurs.? 
The Neo-Platonice writers, long after Christianity 
appeared, give a different version of Plato; but 
their interpretations are not supported by the 
text, and even their own Trinity is different from 
the Christian. The fundamental Christian doctrine 
of the Incarnation, so stupendously inwrought in the 
New Testament with the Trinity, has no place in 
Plato; nor could it, consistently with his depreci- 
ation of matter. It has never been seriously main- 
tained that the doctrine of Atonement is fore- 
shadowed in Plato; and Archer Butler has pointed 
to this blank, which he finds also in those Christian 
theologians who have been most influenced by him. 


“They abound with noble thoughts nobly expressed, but 
they are all marked with the characteristic defect of Platonized 


1 Archer Butler’s History of Ancient Philosophy, u. p. 38. 
Note by the late Professor Thompson, of Cambridge, 


The 
distinctive 
doctrines of 
Christianity 
not in 
Plato. 


The 
Platonic 
Logos not 
personal, 


The Incar- 
nation has 
no place 
in Plato. 


The 
Atonement 
not fore- 
shadowed 
in Plato. 


10 


Is the Evolution of Christianity from 


Grace 

and re- 

generation 

not antici- 
ated by 
lato. 


The Resur- 
rection not 
only 
unknown to 
but excluded 
from, 
Platonic © 
idealism. 


Christianity,—a forgetfulness, or inadequate commemoration 
of the most tremendous proof this part of the universe has ever 
been permitted to witness of the reality of the divine hatred for 
sin—the fact of the Christian Atonement.” + 


It is to be added, that the great Christian doc- 
trine of Grace, especially in Regeneration, has no 
true forecast in Plato. On the human side, there is 
a change, an awakening, a recovery, and even as in 
the case of Socrates, something like a divine reve- 
lation and help. But as there is no objective 
redemption in the depth of the Christian sense, and 
as there is no Holy Spirit, so there is no provision, 
and could be none, for the new birth as the be- 
ginning of the kingdom of heaven; and while it 
cannot be said that there is quite so great a blank 
as in regard to the Atonement, for there is every- 
where a pathetic sense of necessity and an occa- 
sional flash of anticipation, this great regenerator 
of society relies mainly on personal effort and 
re-organizations connected with moral education. 
The only other doctrinal difference that needs to 
be noticed is that bearing on the Resurrection; 
for as even the immortality of the soul does not 
rest to Christian faith on an eternal pre-existence 
of any part of the spirit, so its doctrine of the 
resurrection of the body, which in connection with 
that of Christ animates it throughout, is, in the 
Platonic idealism, not only unknown but excluded. 

These irreducible differences are all indefinitely 

1 History of Ancient Philosophy, u. p. 308. 


Mere Natural Sources Credible ? 


I] 


a , 


increased in their bearing on the problem of a 
possible derivation of Christianity from Platonism, 
by the absence of anything in Platonism, corre- 
sponding to the life of a Divine Man, or Saviour, 
or any foresight of the work of such a person, 
such as enter into the very substance of Chris- 
tianity. No doubt there are one or two “un- 
conscious prophecies,” which, if we grant the 
common interpretation of Plato, especially in 
regard to the fate of the perfectly righteous man 
to be rejected and even crucified (De Republica, 
Book II.) are very remarkable. But even ranking 
these at the highest, they could never have proved 
the germ of the Gospel history; nor, without some 
large anticipation of this, could Platonism have 
given birth to Christianity. We shall see im- 
mediately what can be made of Jewish prophecy 
in conjunction with it or in addition to it. But 
those who go on to bring in this, as all must do, 
really give up the case in regard to Plato; nor 
is it necessary to raise other difficulties as to how 
Christ, or other authors of Christianity, treated 
here from a merely human point of view, could 
have- become acquainted with Plato, or received 
from his writings the impulse which is required. 
When they had learned all they were little more 
than at the beginning of their work, which was to 
create Christianity, distinctively considered, so far 
as Greek philosophy was concerned, out of nothing... 


Platonism 
knows 
nothing of 
a Divine 
man or 
Saviour. 


Plato’s 
remarkable 
references 
to the fate 
of the 
perfectly 
righteous 
man could 
never have 
iven 
birth to 
Christianity. 


Not 
necessary to 
consider 
whether 
Christ or 
other 
authors of 
Christianity 
could have 
become 
acquainted 
with Plato, 


12 


Ts the Evolution of Christiamty from 


The alleged 
derivation of 
Christianity, 
in a merely 
natural way, 
from Jewish 
literature 

as a whole, 
viewed as a 
mere human 
formation. 


The dis- 
cussion 
confined to 
alleged 
Jewish an-= 
ticipations 


This ground 
has been 
taken by 
Strauss in 
his Leben 
Jes, 


CHRISTIANITY NOT DERIVED FROM PRE-EXISTING 
JEWISH INTERPRETATIONS OF THE MEsSIANIC 
PROPHECIES. 


II. The second alleged source of derivation is 
the pre-existing Jewish thought, especially as found 
in Jewish interpretations of the Messianic pro- 
phecies of the Old Testament. 

This might be put in a still wider form, that the 
whole of Jewish literature, including the Old Tes- 
tament, the Apocrypha, and other materials, after- 
wards called Talmudic, taken together, as a mere 
human formation, in the days of Christ and His 
apostles, in a merely human and natural way, 
originated Christianity. - This, no doubt, would be 
the fullest ground for the discussion of the question. 
But it is evidently too large to be treated here, 
and therefore I limit myself to alleged Jewish 
anticipations of a Messiah ; for nothing is so vital, 
so likely to have originated Christianity on natural 
principles as this; and there will be few, if any, 
who, if satisfied that this is insufficient, will fall 
back on any residual virtue in the Old Testament, 
or anything that had already gathered round it in 
Jewish religious history. There is also the great 
advantage in this limitation, that this ground has 
been taken definitely in the most celebrated dis- 
cussion of the question in recent controversy—the 
Leben Jesu (the Life of Jesus) of Strauss in its 


Mere Natural Seiresa Credible ? 


different forms, who concentrates his effort to 
deduce Christianity without the supernatural, on 
the influence of so-called Jewish interpretations 
of Old Testament prophecy on the mind of Jesus 
and His followers. If this scheme can be shown 
to be inadequate, and anything farther which, in 
moral and (equally natural) mental working, they 
may be supposed to have added to it, the question 
as to the human origin of Christianity must be 
answered in the negative. 

Strauss, as is well known, grants a tolerably as- 
certained body of fact and opinion, making up the 
historical life and teaching of Jesus. He was, 
according to Strauss, a wonderfully gifted Teacher 
and Organizer, not yet surpassed in the history of 
the world, but essentially a Moralist, who appre- 
hended as never before the Fatherhood of God 
and the brotherhood of man, His teaching lies 
in the Sermon on the Mount and similar utterances, 
which fall entirely short of a claim to divinity, 
though He claimed to be the Jewish Messiah, and 
expected to survive death and come in the clouds 
of heaven. While Strauss grants that He fore- 
told His crucifixion, he does not allow that He 
foretold His resurrection, and regards all His 
anticipations as to a reign after death as due to 
enthusiasm. He holds also that Jesus spiritualized 
the Jewish idea of the Messiah as it stood in His 
days, and on the basis of it hoped to found a 


13 


Strauss’s 
views of 
the life 

and teaching 
of Jesus, 


Strauss 
denies that 
Jesus fore. 
told His 
resurrection, 


14 


Strauss’s 
admissions 
as to the 
source of 
Christ's 
view of His 
own death. 


Is the Evolution of Christianity from 


FEE ie Ak. ni pee iene eek 
universal religion for Jews and Gentiles ; and he 
even admits that He may have derived from the 
Old Testament prophecies, a view of His own 
death as an atonement for sin, and in this sense 


| (though the fact is not certain) instituted the 


A natural 
origin of 
Christianity 
cannot be 
found either 
at the point 
where 
Christ left 
it or from 
the point at 
which His 
disciples 
developed it. 


The scheme 
of Strauss 


is not 
Christianity. 


What 
may be 
admitted, 


Lord’s supper. 

Such is the view of Strauss regarding the Chris- 
tianity which Jesus Himself held, and which was 
afterwards added to by His followers. Can it be 
said then, either first, that we find here a natural 
origin of Christianity at the point where Christ 
Himself left it, or secondly, that we find such an 
origin when Christianity comes to be developed from 
this point by His disciples? Each of these questions 
must be answered unhesitatingly in the negative. 

First, it must be said, without granting that the 
Old Testament was human to begin with, that the 
religious scheme with which Christ ts credited by 
Strauss is not in the proper sense Christianity. Ii 
it be not Christianity that is originated, the whole 
labour of Strauss falls to the ground. It may be 
readily enough granted, that it was not in the nature 
of things impossible for Jesus, as Strauss conceives 
Him, to have risen up a great moral Teacher, and 
to have found much nourishment for His moral 
and religious sensibilities in the Old Testament. It 
may also be granted that such a Teacher would be 
likely to enter with peculiar depth into the Old 
Testament doctrine of a Messiah, and would spiri- 


Mere Natural Sources Credible ? 


15 


tualize that conception and hope, in such a way 
as to take it entirely out of the region of mere 
temporal conquest and influence. It may be even 
by a stretch credible, that a great and profoundly 
reverent spirit might regard this Messiah as needing 
to suffer and atone for sin: for this was undoubt- 
edly in the text of the prophecies—no matter how 
it came there—and a faithful student, even in a 
dark, carnal, and self-righteous age, might recover 
‘his hold over the original. But where we are 
compelled to part company with Strauss, is where 
he supposes it possible that a mere man so great 
and pure, approaching faultless excellence, yet not 
reaching it, such as he conceives Jesus to have 
been, could have believed Himself to be that 
wonderful Messiah, or held language as to His 
approaching sacrifice, or instituted any memorial of 
it. This is to do the work of Christianity without 
a Christian instrument: for Christianity does not 
need any kind of so-called Messiah—it cannot 
proceed even with a sinless one,—who is not Divine, 
and as Strauss has planted no consciousness of the 
Divine in Jesus, drawn from the Old Testament, 
but even denied his sinlessness, and seen in his 
disclaimer of the good in Himself} the confession 
of an “unremoved discord”? between Himself and 
God, it cannot be said that there is here any real 
passage from the Old Testament to Christianity. 
1 Mark x. 18. 2 Bruch. 


The Christ 
of Strauss 
incredible. 


Christianity 
cannot 
dispense 
with a 
Divine 
Saviour. 


16 Ts the Evolution of Christianity from 


The... The Christ of Strauss is thus quite incongruous— 
of the id not only a defective teacher (however great) as he 
Straus. admits, but a personality with a sense of failure 


and shortcoming toward God, yet capable of 
aspiring to the work of a Messiah and of becoming 
the Christ of all ages.1 Such a position at once 
falls. No suggestion from the Old Testament, or 
possible prophecies that may have inspired, instead 
of rebuking, such a career, can be regarded. 


arhttrary It may be added here, that it is remarkable in 
which how arbitrary a way Strauss makes the Old Testa- 


makes the ment act on the mind of Jesus, so as to determine 
ment act 7 on the one hand His actual, on the other His 
fone mythical history. According to Strauss Jesus knows 
all the prophecies respecting a forerunner to the 
Messiah, and yet has no relations with John the 
Baptist, to whom He owes no more than to the 
Essenes. He knows all that seems to be spoken 
of the Messiah as the Son of David, yet never 
lays claim to that title and discourages the use 
of it. He is acquainted with the long-standing 
prophetic tradition as to the Messiah riding into 
Jerusalem; but Strauss supposes it more likely that 
Jesus took in this part of His expected work as the 
Messiah no special interest, and that the narrative 
may be due to the colouring of the evangelists. 
And once more, prophecy moves Jesus to expect 
and to announce His own death to His disciples, 


1 Leben Jesu, 1864, p. 202, 


Mere Natwral Sources Crecible ? 


in terms of the 58rd of Isaiah; but though that 
oracle or the 16th Psalm might have suggested a 
resurrection, not one word of this was breathed to 


them. It may be said that in these and other ™m 


cases, it was the dread of the supernatural that kept 
Strauss back: for had he freely granted that Jesus 
in all these cases fulfilled the Old Testament idea, 
or Himself prophesied, it would have compelled 
him to acknowledge miracle. Yet on the other 
hand, Strauss undoubtedly grants what looks very 
like fulfilment of prophecy in the death of Jesus ; 
so that his result is made all the more incoherent 
by his own concessions, and is not so much a 
deduction of Christianity in the actual life of Jesus, 
as a fanciful application and rejection of the Old 
Testament in the genesis of that life by turns. 
Secondly, it must be added, that the theory by 
which Strauss supplements Christianity as derived, 
beyond the point where Christ left it, is not more 
tenable. His work is to bridge over the gap where 
he confessedly leaves Christ, with a simpler and 
purer Christianity, till the Gospels were written, 
and Christianity with them was corrupted, about 
the middle of the second century. He still holds 
by his main source, and in reply to the objection, 
that even this is too short a time for the trans- 
formation of histories into anything, he says that 
“They did not rise first in this age, but their first foundation 
was already before and after the Babylonian exile; the trana- 
c 


17 


e 
deterrent 
effect of the 
dread of the 
super- 
natural on 
Strauss, 


Strauss’s 
concessions 
make his 
result 
incoherent, 


The theory 
whereby 
Etrauss sup. 
plements 
Christianity 
as left by 
Christ 
untenable, 


18 


Is the Evolution of Christianity from 


ce 


The artifici- 
ality of 
Strauss’s 
process. 


The 
teaching of 
the disciples 
according to 
Strauss. 


ference of all this, with its dogmatic modification, went on all 
through the centuries till Jesus ; and the time from the gather- 
ing of the first Church till the rise of the Gospels, was the 
period of the application of the mostly already formed Messianic 
legends to him.” ? 

The briefest criticism is all that can be allowed to 
this scheme of the transformation of Christ’s life 
and doctrine by His followers into what is now 
Christianity. 

(1.) It may be remarked, first, that the process 
is very artificial. So long as Strauss is criticising 
the supernatural features and apparent contra- 
dictions of the Gospels, his arguments have some 
plausibility ; but the moment he becomes a system- 
builder of myths, everything becomes strained, and 
often dull. Among the myths of the Infancy are, 
according to him, that the Messiah was to be the 
Son of David; hence, Strauss holds, that the 
disciples acted on by their mistaken readings of 
prophecy, and all through, in the face of history, 
taught the literal descent of Jesus from David, 
His birth in Bethlehem, and His baptism by 
John, like David’s anointing by Samuel. So the 
Messiah ‘was to be the Son of God, and thus 
the way is opened for the miraculous conception, 
for the “ Wisdom ” of God in Jesus, like that in 
Proverbs, for the blending of Greek philosophy as to 
“sons of God” with Hebrew, and for the Divine 
predicates in Paul’s Epistles in Hebrews, and in the 

1 Kirst Leben Jesu, 1835, p. 118. 


— 


Mere Natural Sources Credible ? 


a 


Gospel of John—in all of which, however, it is to 
be said there is very little derivation by Strauss 
from the Old Testament. A very contorted part 
of the process is the parallel between Jesus and 
Moses, like whom He has to escape danger in His 
youth,—as like him and Samuel, to be early awake 
to His destiny; and then the parallel is closed, 
not between Jesus and Moses, but between Him 
and the people, who did not overcome, but fell in 
the wilderness. The public life follows the infancy, 
bringing up other mythical parallels with the 
prophets, in having disciples, in healing, feeding, 
restoring to life, though many of the works of 
Jesus have no parallel, and are accompanied by 


discourses quite peculiar. Strauss labours hard to (ty 


find something like the cursing of the fig-tree, and 
the transfiguration as modelled after the shining face 
of Moses. The scenes in the last sufferings and death 
have little parallelism with older history, and are 
founded, he says, on oracles misapplied, and scat- 
tered utterances made to converge, such as ‘Smite 
the Shepherd ;” ‘A bone of Him shall not be 
broken.” The Resurrection and Ascension, equally 
helped, pass, at the hands of the disciples, into the 
Gospel narrative, and colour Christian doctrine. 
(2.) A second and still more fatal objection to 
the mythical scheme is that it is wholly inadequate. 
If our Lord’s disciples were not more advanced in 
their views of the personal greatness of Jesus than 


19 


The parallel 
between 
Jesus and 
Moses. 


The cursing 
e 
barren fig- 
tree. 


The 
narrative 
of the 
sufferings 
and death. 


The 
inadequacy 
the 
mythical 
scheme. 


20 


Is the Evolution of Christianity from 


The insuf- 
ficiency of 
the vision 
hypothesis 


What the 
disciples 
had to do. 


Their first 
preaching. 


St. Paul’s 
converslon, 


How could 
the Christ 
of Strauss 
aave so 
transformed 
th 


e 
disciples ? 


Strauss supposes them to have been, how could 
they emerge from the terrible catastrophe of His 
crucifixion? The vision hypothesis of the Resur- 
rection held by Strauss is not sufficient. They 
not only had to recover their faith in Him as 
the Messiah. They had to rise to the view of 
His Deity. They had to develop the germ of a 
doctrine of Atonement found in His teaching, 
from which the narrative represents them as 
before estranged. They had to connect this 
doctrine of Atonement with His Deity, and to make 
this the centre of Christianity, turning the cross 
which was the shame into the glory of the new 
system. There is no room left for such a trans- 
formation in their hands, bowed down as they were 
with grief and disappointment. ‘There is every 
evidence that these doctrines constituted their first 
preaching. The Apostle Paul is almost immediately 
in the field with written testimonies, whose genuine- 
ness is unquestioned, and every effort to disconnect 
him from their Christianity is a failure, since 
Strauss himself describes the Apostle as converted 
by and in sympathy with the first Church. How 
then could Jesus, so much smaller than the Apostles 
made Him, nothing more, according to Strauss, 
than a great moralist, with no miracle, prophecy, 
or ray of true divinity, so dazzle these fishermen 
of Galilee? How could He turn them by the 
magi¢ of His iniluence into the great theologians 


Mere Natural Sources Credible ? 


21 


and reformers of the world—the creators even of 
Himself, as He has been commonly believed in— 
and enable them in a few brief days and weeks 
when left without Him, to bring out of the whole 
Old Testament what they had never found in it 
before, the transcendent and glorified image of His 
eternal greatness, condescension, love, and victory ? 
This is the radical difficulty in the heart of the 
mythical theory; and the common view which 
brings the same Christ out of it from the beginning 
alike to Jesus and His disciples, but with Him 
both fulfilling and interpreting it as a Divine 
book, and leading the way, has here by every 
argument the stamp of nature and of reality. 

(3.) Thirdly, this scheme of Strauss as to the 
mythical derivation and exaggeration of Chris- 
tianity is inconsistent. Why does Jesus, who so 
fascinates His disciples, and leads them to see in 
every Old Testament nook and cranny some re- 
flection of His greatness, leave His impress so 
shadowy that it can be moulded, if not into the 
opposite, into the immense disfigurement of Him- 
self? Why is Christ, the grandest of teachers, the 
least able to regulate His own followers, so that 
they disport themselves on His grave, and celebrate 
ere long for the Man of Nazareth the alter ego of 
the divinity? Strauss affirms that had Jesus 
returned to the earth, He would not by the time 
of the fall of Jerusalem have recognized His own 


The difli- 
culty in the 
heart of the 
mythical 
theory 
insoluble. 


Strauss’s 
scheme 
inconsistent. 


Christ, 
according to 
Strauss, 

at once 
fascinates 
His disciples 
and fails 

to regulate 
them. 


Is the Evolution of Christianity from 


Strauss’s 
conscious— 
ness of the 
weakness of 
his own 
scheme. 
His final 
abandon- 
ment of 
both 
Christianity 
and Theism. 


Philonism 


Christianity. 


image. How could such a vacillating faith have 
ever conquered the world, when it could not hold — 
its own first disciples? It has been said that 
diseases of the lungs could be healed if the organ 
could only find rest. But here is a Christianity 
smitten from the first with this disease of change, 
yet working on and serving all the functions of 
respiration even better when transmuted by His 
disciples than in the days of Christ Himself. 
Strauss feels here the weakness of his own scheme, 
and hence his bitterness against the Christian 
world, which has preferred to accept a risen and 
Divine, rather than a naturalistic, Christ. And 
hence, too, his ultimate despair of religion alto- 
gether, in his Old and New Faith, in which 
every reading, not only of Christianity, but of 
Theism, the mythical theory included, is abandoned, 
and the course of the world wrapped up in a suc- 
cession of catastrophes without any continuous 
history. 


CHRISTIANITY NOT DERIVED FROM ALEXANDRIAN 
HELLENIC JUDAISM. 


III. We come to the third and last alleged 
source of Christianity in the way of natural © 
development, the mixture of Hellenic and Jewish 
thought found in Alexandria, and especially in the 
writings of Philo. In this Tract Philo may be con- 


Mere Natural Sources Credible ? 


23 


sidered alone; for if the connexion is disproved in 
regard to him it can be maintained in regard to no 
other. Now in regard to Philo, it may be said 
that he is a high and noble figure in the history 
of human thought; that there is in him a true 
Hebrew side, which far beyond Plato secures 
approximation to and coincidences with Chris- 
tianity, and that there is even one doctrine of 
his creed, which to a degree without any parallel 
elsewhere seems to ally him with distinctive 
Christianity—his doctrine of the Logos. But 
it must not less be contended that Philo 1s, 
when all has been considered, a quite inadmissible 
origin of Christianity ; and the present writer, after 
a careful reading of his works and some study of 
what has been written by others, is more than ever 
convinced of the hopelessness of the scheme of 
those, who, like Bolingbroke and Voltaire in last 
century, and like Strauss and Zeller, with far 
superior learning in our own, have held that there 
is a real and vital connexion between not only 
Platonic thought generally, but also Philonism 
and Christianity. In farther discussing this inter- 
esting question, it may be a suitable method to 
examine first, the approximations of Philo to 
Christianity, other than those alleged in regard to 
the Logos. Then, secondly, to set forth the con- 
fessed or little doubted divergencies; and then, 
thirdly, in the light of these extremes, so to speak, 


Philo’s 
Hebrew 
side. 


His doctrine 
of the 
Logos 
connects 
him with 
Christianity. 


The 
connexion 
between 
Philonism 


an 
Christianity 
not vital. 


24 


Approxima- 
tions 

of Philo to 
Christianity. 


Tlis natione 
wlity 


His 
patriotic 
sympathy 
with the 
Jews, 


Is the Evolution of Christianity from 


and of its own meaning, to estimate the so-called 
Logos doctrine in its possible fitness to have sug- 
gested or originated Christianity. 

1. There fall then first to be considered the 
approximations of Philo to Christianity. ‘These are 
often under-estimated by writers of the very school 
who suppose the influence of Philo to have been 
greatest. They love to think of him as little 
better than a Greek and as a reflection more or 
less pale of Greek civilization and philosophy. 
But in point of fact his national feeling is deep and 
ineradicable. As the philosophical Jew in Germany 
is not a German, neither was Philo in Alexandria 
a Greek. No doubt Greek culture had done 
much from the days of Alexander the Great to 
those of Philo—whose period was 20 B.c—d4 A.D,— 
to transform externally and superficially the mind 
of the Jew of the dispersion; but in his deepest 
heart he was still a child of Abraham, and the 
Old Testament was more to him than all philo- 
sophy. We see with what keenness Philo enters 
into the quarrels of the Alexandrine mob and the 
Jews, with what satisfaction he depicts the re- 
morse of the tyrannic proconsul Flaccus, with 
what patriotic sympathy he enters upon his 
embassy to Caligula (a.p. 39) to obtain the 
removal of the idol from the temple at Jerusalem. 
Rationalistic critics fail to see this leading feature. 
Neander—himself a Jew—has seized it, and 


Mere Natural Sources Credible 2 


shown that with all his singular interpretations, 


Philo was yet a true child of the Old Testament, t 


and therefore had a place in preparing for the New. 

This approach to Christianity lies, first, in the 
genuine supernaturalism of Philo’s teaching. He 
accepts quite literally the fact of the Deluge, the 
appearance of angels to Abraham, the fasting of 
Moses forty days and nights; and he admits 
prophecy as well as miracle, such as the pre- 
announcementeof the destruction of Pharaoh in 
the Red Sea, of the descent of the manna, and of 


the death of Korah and his company.’ He quite 4 


understands the peculiarity of Judaism as based 
upon a revelation ; and his doctrine of inspiration 
would now be regarded as even rigorous. 

It has been justly said that his excessive alle- 
gorizing is in one sense due to this idea of the 
origin of Judaism; for as the literal sense seems to 
him often inadmissible, he has recourse to the most 
violent and mystical interpretations in order to 
preserve his reverence for what he regarded as an 
incomparably deep and divine book. The most of 
his writings are indeed commentaries on the Penta- 
teuch, written with as profound belief in the text, 
as that of Origen, whom in his allegorizings he so 


Testament 


He accepts 
@ super- 
natural, 


8 
understande 
Judaism to 
be based 


ona 
revelation, 


His allee 
gorizing 
due to his 
doctrine of 
inspiration. 


much resembles; and when, as in his Life of Moses, Fp ig 


it is otherwise, the same devotion to that great 
prophet is apparent, whom he exalts above every 
1 De Vita Mosis, ut. § 34-88. 


Moses. 


26 


His recog- 
nition of 
Moses not 
formal only. 


Philo’s 
doctrine 
of Theism. 


Creation. 


Is the Evolution of Christianity from 


law-giver or philosopher of mere human authority, 
and supposes to have been so fully. inspired, that 
in the end of this work he declares him to have 
predicted and recorded in Deuteronomy his own 
death and burial by supernatural means. Nor 
can I admit with Professor Schiirer, in his article 
on Philo, in the current edition of the Encyclopedia 
Britannica, that this recognition of Mosaic author- 
ity is merely formal, and that Philo accepts the 
laws of Moses because they seem tg him inwardly 
reasonable and cosmopolitan, and thus to agree with 
the universal religion and morality which had 
been so far reached by Greek philosophers. This 
is not consistent with his condemnations and de- 
nunciations of the Pagan world, including the 
philosophers. Nor is it consistent with Professor 
Schiirer’s own acknowledgment : 

‘* Above all, his whole works prove on every page that he felt 
himself to be thoroughly a man, and desired to be nothing else. 
Jewish ‘philosophy’ is to him the true and highest wisdom ; 
the knowledge of God and of things divine and human, which 
is contained in the Mosaic Scriptures is to him the deepest and 
the purest.” 

The approach of Philo to Christianity may be 
said to he, secondly, in a purer doctrine of Theism. 
This cannot be said save in contrast with philo- 
sophy, for there are points where Philo is dis- 
tinctly below the Old Testament. Thus the 
doctrine of creation is less pronounced in his com- 
mentaries than in the original ; and he has allowed 


Mere Natural Sources Credible ? 


27 


SESS 


himself to borrow from Plato or some other source, 
a certain dark background of negation, from which 
evil may be derived, and not from God. This is 
also true in regard to his high metaphysical view of 
God as the ré dy (the Being that truly is), whose 
nature is ideal unity, incompatible with any human 
apprehension of his separate attributes. But this 
is only a transient speculation, which has too 
much re-appeared even in schools of Christian 
theology, and does not darken the general clear- 
ness of his reflexion of the Old Testament view 
of the Divine character. It is indeed a grand 
and lofty representation which Philo on the whole 
gives; and nothing like it is to be found in Plato, 
or any of the philosophers. The strictness of 
monotheism is preserved inviolate, and the folly, 
blasphemy, and degradation of idolatry are 
_ everywhere brought home. The high attributes 
of eternity, immensity, and immutability are 
maintained. If the power of God is theoreti- 
cally limited in regard to creation, it is practically 
asserted, and also in harmony with wisdom in 
regard to both creation and providence. The 
reign of moral government, on the side both of 
“justice and benignity is upheld, and with con- 


spicuous ability defended. The God of Philo is ™ 


also a Father who pities His children, who helps 
_ their infirmities and forgives their iniquities, who 
_ hears their prayers, and who makes their return to 


Origin of 
evil. 


His view 
of God, 


Strictness of 
his mono- 
theism, 


Moral 
government, 


e 
Fatherhood 
of God. 


28 


The 
personality 
of God. 


Philo’s 
doctrine of 
practical 
piety and 
virtue. 
Defect in 
his system. 


His better 
side, which 
is in har- 
mony with 
the Old 
Testament, 
predomi- 
nates, 


Is the Evolution of Christianity from 


and enjoyment of Himself their chief good. The 
personality of God is thus as truly vindicated in 
Philo, as in the Old Testament. 
judge how much this means, who is acquainted at 
this point with the downfall of the Greek and 
especially of the Stoical philosophy. Even Plato 


Any one can 


has been charged, probably unjustly, with a shade 
of Pantheism ; but in Philo no such trace appears. 

The third and last point to be noticed in Philo’s 
approaches to Christianity lies in his earnest doctrine 
of practical piety and virtue. There is no doubt 
one grievous defect in his system, which he so far 
shares with Plato, his false doctrine of the relation 
of evil to the body, darkening and confusing his 
whole scheme of the blessed life, and of recovery 
to it He cannot justly be charged with holding 
an eternal pre-existence of the soul, or an in- 
definite series of transmigrations. And practically 
the pre-existence of the soul does not mean much 
more with him than that it comes direct from God 
and is united to a different element. But in his 
view of this different element of sense, as related 
to temptation, as affecting duty, and as making 
him cold and silent in regard to the resurrection of 
the body, there is only too large an infusion of 
non-Christian thought. Still, practically his better 
side, which is in harmony with the Old Testament, 
here predominates, and makes him a true and 
earnest teacher, not only of natural virtue, but of 


Mere Natural Sources Credible ? 


29 


recovery to God by repentance and faith on the 
basis of God’s own revelation and covenant. His 
beautiful work on the Decalogue sets up a high 
standard of duty, whereby through the law there 
may come the knowledge of sin. As his doctrine of 
sense is connected with free-will, and does not make 
the subjection of the soul to the body necessary, 
there ig room for a large and wide and often 
graphic exposure of all the cheats and delusions by 
which the soul is separated from God. The reality 
of the fall is thus brought home, with the need 
of what, though it may not be called by that 
name, is really a spiritual birth. ‘“ Repentance” 
(76 peravoeitvy) is enforced in a tract under that 
name; and in connexion with this and with return 
to God, the two adjectives are applied to the 
penitent, which correspond, though vaguely to the 
Christian ideas of justification (@copidjc) and 
sanctification (piddSeoc). Faith also is urged ; and 
the same Pauline text! is quoted as the highest 
encomium of Abraham; nay in the close of the 
same treatise on Abraham, there is a eulogy of faith 
(though far inferior) in the strain of the Epistle to 
the Hebrews. Nor is the doctrine of Divine grace 
and influence wanting, although in definite con- 
nexion with a personal Spirit, it is still almost below 
the horizon. These facts are to be noticed in Philo, 
because rationalistic writers, seeing no difference 


1 Gen. xv. 6; Rom. iv. 3. 


His 
standard 
of duty. 


His doctrine 
of sense. 


The reality 
of the fall 
and the 
need of 
repentance. 


Faith 
required 


The doctrine 
of Divine 
grace. 


30 


Rationalists 
have 
generally 
overlooked 
Philo’s 
approxima- 
tions to 
Christianity. 


Philo’s 
divergencies 
from the 


Old 
Testament. 


The doctrine 
of the 
Messiah 
much in 
the shade 
in Philo. 


Te the Evolution of Christianity from 


between regeneration and natural virtue, have 
generally overlooked them, and have ranked this 
writer more as a heathen moralist than as an Old 
Testament believer, often mistaken, but earnest 
and sincere—and thus already on the road to 
Christianity. 

2. But now, secondly, in justice to our argument 
as to derivation or non-derivation, we have to take 
Philo on the opposite side, and see how far he 
has gone back even from the Old Testament, as a 
foreshadowing of Christianity. It will hardly be 
denied that here in some unaccountable, but yet 
only too visible a movement, we have a recession 
of the tide, and find ourselves in the shallows. 
This affects two points of Philo’s doctrine; but 
these of the gravest import—his view of the 
Messiah and his view of Sacrifice. If he is here 
out of harmony even with the Old Testament, 
how can he be the creator, direct or indirect, of 
Christianity P . 

(1.) Let us begin with his Doctrine of the 
Messiah. This is comparatively easy to ascertain, 
and need not occupy uslong. All must admit that 
this doctrine is in Philo from first to last singularly 
in the shade, and bears no proportion to its place 
in the Old Testament. ‘There is no mention of 


the Messiah in the way of reference to any parts - 


of the Old Testament beyond the books of Moses, 
There is no allusion to the references to Him in 


Mere Natural Sources Credible ? 


dl 


Genesis, as ¢.g., to the seed of the woman,! or to 
the seed of Abraham,? save only in the handling 
of the latter text, in the vaguest way, or to the 
Shiloh. The only Messianic passages distinctly 
referred to are two, one in Numbers‘ where a 
King is spoken of “higher than Agag,” and 
afterwards as “a star out of Jacob.” The passage 
comes in near the end of the tract of Philo, on 
“Rewards and Punishments,” where the promise 
of help to Israel in war, and of help so effectual 
as in the latter day to secure its abolition, is 
considered. 


“For a man shall come, says the oracle (Numbers xxiv. 7), 
leading and making war, and shall subdue great and populous 
nations, God sending to His saints the fitting help. This is the 
invincible courage of souls, and most vigorous strength of bodies, 
each of which is formidable to enemies, and where they are 
combined, perfectly irresistible.’ 


The only other reference is to Deut. xviii. 15— 
22 (there is, however, no quotation), where Philo, 
at the end of his first Book on the Theocracy, thus 
speaks of the promise of Moses :— 


‘*He says that, if they are truly pious, they shall not want 
knowledge of the future: but a certain prophet suddenly ap- 
pearing, and divinely inspired, shall foretell and prophecy to 
them, saying nothing of His own, for then He shall not be able 
to receive it as one truly possessed and ina state of enthusiasm ; 
but what He utters he shall repeat as from the suggestion of 


1 Gen. iii. 15. 2 Gen. xxii. 16. 3 Gen. xlix. 10. 
* Numbers xxiv. 7, or perhaps 17, 
5 De Praemiis, u. 424, Mangey’s Edition. For all transla- 
tions from the Greek or Latin, the writer is responsible, 


Two 
Messianic 
passages 
only 
distinctly 
referred to 
by Philo 


** Higher 
than 
Agag OF 
‘Star out 
of Jacob,’ 


The prophet 
like unto 
Moses, 


32 Is the Evolution of Christianity from 
I eve cere INDE i TET 
another ; for the prophets are the interpreters of God, who uses 


them as instruments for the disclosure of His will,” ? 

How small a part the doctrine of the Messiah as 
such had in the theology of Philo is evident when 
these are all the specific references to such a King 


Hopes and Prophet in his voluminous works. It is true, 
connected , ° 
with a ., indeed, that there are hopes connected in the 


Meeptea Prophets, with a general Messianic period, which 
by Fhe. Philo accepts and embodies. These are almost 


Transforma- entirely limited to two passages. The one is 


venomou 2 = 
Minera founded upon Isaiah xi, where he accepts as 


ain dc, literal the transformation of the venomous and 
iden destructive creatures, and as connected with it the 
The change cessation of war among men.? The other passage 
fortunes. ig @ reminiscence of Deut. xxx., where Philo 
describes the sudden change in Israel’s fortunes, 
and their return from their last captivity, eman- 
cipated by their conquerors, who are astonished 


at the conversion which they have experienced :— 


‘< When they have obtained this unlooked for deliverance, whe 
shortly before were scattered in Greece and among the Bar- 
barians over islands and continente, rising with one impulse, they 
march from all different sides to the one region that has been 
revealed to them, guided by a higher than mortal vision, un- 
shared by others, and disclosed only to the rescued themselves.” * 


No call of ; 
iy che 5 Grand, however, as these passages are, there i8 


in Phil not in Philo any proper call of the Gentiles, even 


1 De Monarchia, u. 222. Mangey. 
2 De Praemiis, IL, 422. 3 De Exscorationibus, 0, 436, 


Mere Natural Sources Credible ? 


33 


in a Messianic age. It is the Jews who return, 
and who continue and perpetuate for ever, as he 
elsewhere tells us, those Jewish sacrifices in Jeru- 
salem, which are already, according to him, offered 
for all the world. No doubt, proselytism must be 
included in his conceptions; but he dwells little 
on it, and thus the result of the Messiah’s work 
is feeble and unimpressive in his seanty references, 
in comparison with the majestic pictures of the 
Psalms and Prophets with which he must have 
been familiar. 

(2.) More adverse, however, to the hypothesis of 
derivation, than this slender and even stunted form 
of the doctrine in Philo of the Messiah, is the 
almost entire want in him of the distinctively 
Christian doctrine of atonement or sacrifice. It is 
not even easy to reconcile this with full Judaism ; 
but it seems impossible to reconcile it with the 
giving of a large impulse to Christianity. 

It cannot be said that Philo lacks the sense of 
the evil of sin. He looks on human nature as 
truly fallen; and some of his pictures recall the 
first chapter of the Epistle to the Romans. There 
must be a discovery of disease and an earnest flight 
from it, not without Divine help. By the use of 
a very powerful figure, he describes the supreme 
importance of this by supposing a physician to 
enter a great house or palace, and regardless of the 
splendour of the building, the attendants, the fur- 


dD 


Proselytism 
included in 
his concep= 
tions; but 
he dwells 
little on it. 


The dis- 
tinctively 
Christian 
doctrine of 
atonement 
almost 
entirely 
wanting 
in Philo’s 
writings, 


fallen. 


34 


Is the Evolution of Christianity from 


Sin regarded 
as disease 
rather than 
as violation 
of law by 
Philo. 


The 
transfer and 
imputation 
of guilt has 
hardly any 
place in his 
theology. 


The burnt 
and peace 
offerings 
viewed by 
him as 
purely 
eucharistic, 


niture, and of the carved bed on which the patient 
lies, to care only for the beating of his pulse, and 


the special remedies which he requires? But un- 


happily Philo looks too much on sin as disease, 
and too little as a violation of law demanding ex- 
piation. Hence the great remedy for sin which he 
everywhere urges and exalts is repentance, as when 
he says, “ Repentance is the younger brother of in- 
nocence.”2 It is then hard for Philo to give any 
explanation of the Old Testament sacrifices. The 
idea of guilt being transferred and imputed has 
hardly a place in his theology ; and in dealing with 
the burnt-offering, and the laying of the hands of 
the offerer upon it, he treats this rite, not as a con- 
fession of sin, but as a protestation of innocence :— 

‘© These hands have not received any gift of unrighteousness, 
or fruit of violence and covetousness, nor have they ae 
innocent blood.” 8 

No doubt Philo says this of the burnt-offering, 
which, with the peace-offering, he treats as purely 
eucharistic; but this explanation of the rite is 
contrary to Leviticus,t where the laying on of the 
hands is interpreted in the annual sin-offering, as 
the putting of the transgressions of Israel “on the 
head of the goat;” nor can Philo apply an 
emblem so significant, with a totally different 

1 Fragment on Providence, 1., 638. 

3 xb meravociv GdeApdy vedrepoy by tov wd bAws Guapreiv. 1. 634. 

3 De Animal. Sacrific. idon. 11, 242, 4 Levit. xvi. 21. 


Mere Natural Sources Credible ? 


30 


meaning, to alleged different sacrifices. When he 
comes to the sin-offering, he cannot get rid of the 
idea, that the pardon is in some way by the will 
of God dependent on the sacrifice; but he still 
falls back on the efficacy of repentance: 

“For somehow the penitent is saved, when he regards the 


disease of the soul as worse than the sufferings of the body” 
(11. 248). 


There is no trace at all in Philo, that the blood of 
the victim atones, because, according to so many 
Jewish interpretations of Leviticus, as the vehicle 
of life, it denotes the giving of one life for another. 
Nor is there any reaching forward to any typical 
idea of a higher sacrifice to come; for Philo ex- 
pressly says: 

“Victims slaughtered for the offence of the high priest or 
people, as already said, are not eaten, but wholly consumed by 
fire, for there is no one better than the high priest or the people, 
who shall be a deprecator of sins.’? 

As Philo can see nothing expiatory in the victims, 
the symbolism of sacrifice becomes a mere set of 
moral lessons to the offerers, for, speaking of the 


unblemished nature of the animals, he says, 
““He wishes to teach them by these emblems to bring no 
weakness or disease or passion in their own soul, but to keep it 


in everything perfectly pure, so as not to repel God, who sees 
the heart.” 3 


He wanders still further away, even from the 


1 Levit. xvii. 11. 2 De Animal. Sacritic. idon. 1. 249, 
5 De Animal. Sacrific. idon. 11. 239, 


While 
regarding 
pardon as 
in some way 
dependent 
on the 
sacrifice, in 
treating the 
sin-offering 
he falls 
back on the 
efficacy of 
repentance, 


No trace of 
atonement 
by blood in 
Philo. 


The 
symbolism 
of sacrifice 
a set of 
moral 
lessons to 
the offerers, 
according 
to him, 


06 


Is the Evolution of Christianity from 


a ae 


Philo 
connects the 
ritual of 
sacrifice 
with general 
cosmical 
relations, 


Philo’s 
scheme 
could never 
originate 
or even 
suggest 

the New 
Testament 
view of 
atonement. 


moral view of the atonement, by connecting the 
ritual of sacrifice with general cosmical relations, 
so that every part of the High Priest’s dress is 
allegorized, the robe in particular representing the 
three lower elements, the ephod, heaven, and the 
twelve names on the breast-plate, not the twelve 
tribes of Israel, but the twelve signs of the Zodiac.’ 
It is not possible to see in such a symbolism any- 
thing but a great recession from the true meaning of 
the Old Testament; though Philo, with his won- 
derful power of holding beth to the literal and the 
spiritual, no doubt strove in his own mind to 
combine both. But it was not possible for such a 
scheme ever to originate, even by suggestion, the 
New Testament view of atonement, where every- 
thing bears so strictly on Christ as the true igh 
Priest and as the Lamb of God who taketh away 
the sin of the world. All schools of thought, 
worth any consideration, accept the Epistle to the 
Hebrews as from the first representing an integral 
and vital part of Christianity ; and we have seen 
that even Jesus, according to Strauss, interpreted 
the 58rd of Isaiah in this sense, and thus sanc- 
tioned a view which, while including all that is 
true in the eucharistic and ethical views of Philo, 
goes unspeakably deeper to hold forth the giving 
of his life as a “ransom for many” (Avtpoy dyri 
roddav). Let it be added that, according to Philo 
1 De Vita Mosis, 1. 154. 


Merve Natural Sources Credible ? 


37 


a a Te ren 


the whole sacrificial system, including the Temple 
and its revenues, shall last for ever (¢¢’ dcov zo 
arvSpomwv yévoc Saperci!) and we see another great 
discord between this scheme and the Christian 
view of the appearing of Christ, “once in the end 
of the world to put away sin by the sacrifice of 
Himself.” 

3. We come then, as our third, and not least 
important inquiry, to take up Philo in regard to 
his doctrine of the Logos, or Word of God, in 
which he has been represented as the most dis- 
tinctively Christian, and as having said enough to 
originate that’part of the doctrine of the New 
Testament which was ultimately moulded by 
Christian theology into the special article of the 
Second Person of the Godhead in the scheme of 
the Trinity and Incarnation. I do not think that 
this view can be supported by facts ; but it 1s also 
possible, as has sometimes been done, to under- 
rate the coincidences of Philo with the New 
Testament, and the degree to which, beyond any 
Jewish writer, he had developed the hints and 
forecastings of Old Testament teaching on this 
head. Still, it cannot be held with any fairness 
that Philo has anticipated the New Testament 
ideas; and this will appear when the two leading 
facts are considered, first, that he has a wavering 
doctrine of the personality of the Logos in relation 

1 De Monarchia, 11, 224, 


Philo 
regards the 
sacrificial 
system, 
including 
the Temple 
and its 
revenues, as 
perpetual, 


His doctrine 
of the 
Logos could 
not have 
originated 
the Christian 
doctrine of 
the Second 
Person of 
the God- 
head. 


Philo’s 
octrine 

of the 

personality 

of the Logos 

in relation 

to God 


wavering. 


38 


Philo’s 
doctrine of 
the 


personality 
of the 
Logos 
radically 
different 
from the 
Christian. 


The in- 
distinctness 
of Philo’s 
language 

in most 
passages ~ 
concerning 
the relation 
of the Logos 
to God. 


Is the Evolution of Christianity from 


to God; and secondly, that the Logos in his 
writings has a very scanty relation to redemption. 
(1.) First, then, the doctrine of Philo as to the 
personality of the Logos in relation to God is waver- 
ing and uncertain, and thus it radically differs from 
the Christian. The number of passages in all 
Philo where the Logos of God is spoken of in any 
sense (as I have counted them) is sixty-two; but 
Now the 
question arises, how far Philo meant by the Logos 
of God, a distinct personality, and how far a mere 
general name for God, under the aspect of the 
fountain of reason, or it may be ‘sometimes of 
speech, without implying any personal distinction 
in the Godhead. The same difficulty, it is well 
known, arises in interpreting the earlier extra- 
Biblical Jewish literature, which in treating of the 
angel of God, or the wisdom of God (as in Gen. 
xlvii. 16, or Prov. viii. 22-31), came to use various 
traditional names, of which “ Word of Jehovah” 
(Chaldee, Memra) stands nearest to the nomen- 
clature of Philo. .The language of Philo himself 
is so indistinct that it is not easy to classify his 
passages, but I have put down thirty-six as capable 
of being reconciled with the idea of abstraction or 
personification, or some other hypothesis, while 
only twenty-six seem, with any clearness, to speak 
of the Logos as distinct from God. I shall give 
one or two samples of the former, and dwell at 


there may be one or two more or less. 


Mere Natural Sources Credible ? 


39 


greater length upon the latter, as only upon them 
can an identification of Philonism with Chris- 
tianity be attempted. 

Thus, in the very first passage that occurs in 
Philo’s works, 1t means nothing when it is said 
that God used, as the pattern of all things that He 
arranged, His own Logos, and that the beauty of 
the universe is due to this reflexion.! So in other 
passages, as where it is said that the soul of man 
s ‘“‘marked with the seal of God, of which the 
print is the everlasting Logos.”2 Nor does it 
separate the Logos from God when it is said that 
“He waters the virtues” as the river of paradise, 
that is parted into four heads;* nor when it is 
declared that “the Divine Logos equally divides 
the manna to all who use it. There is also a class 
of statements where the Logos, seeming to be 
distinguished from the Father, is immediately 
identified with Him, as where it is said, “He is 
the Logos of the Eternal,” but it is added that men 
‘*rejoicing in one race, and honouring one Father, the right 
Logos, lead a bright and cheerful life.’’5 
So also in a style of evident allegorization, since 
God as Father, with knowledge as mother, produces 
the sensible universe, so the Logos as Father, with 
education as mother, begets four kinds of leaders 
1 De Mundi Opif. 1. 33. * De Plantatione Noe, 1. 333. 


¥ De Post. Caini, 1. 250. 4 Quis Rerum Div. Heres, 1. 500, 
5 De Confus. Ling. 1. 411, 


Passages 

in Philo 
which do 
not separate 
the Logos 
from God 


Passages 
which seem 
to dis- 


tinguish but 
immediately 
identify the 
Logos with 
the Father. 


The allegor- 
izing style 
of Philo. 


40 Is the Evolution of Christianity from 


eee 
Samples of of men! And to crown all, in this same strain, 
looseness in the Logos is mentioned as second in a series of 
personal powers, of which Being in general is the first; 
while creative power, with benignity, come in as 
the third and fourth; regal power, with legislative, 
as the fifth and sixth; and the seventh and last is 
the intelligible universe? Such examples show us 
with how loose a hand Philo holds personal dis- 
tinctions; and he even tells us that we may 
mistake a ray for the sun, as Hagar an angel for 
God, and that the apparent Trinity, as in Genesis 
xviii., in the visitants of Abraham, may be due to 
the weakness of vision, especially as the patriarch 
addressed them as One. 
More dis- But now it would be doing injustice to Philo 
Christia®, to suppose that there was nothing that had a 
trine of the more Chvistian look in his Logos doctrine ; and the 
other side, in which, in a less numerous set of 
passages, he endeavours to set forth a real dis- 
tinctness between God and the Logos, and also the 
relation between them is now to be considered. 
Thus he speaks of the Logos as a second God, or 
“second to God;” “the most generic is God, and 
second the Logos of God.’* And again he says 
on Gen. ix. 6, regarding man as made in the image 
of God; 
‘for nothing mortal could be formed after the likeness of the 


1 De EBbrictate, i. 362, ? Armenian Jn Exodum (1. 515. Aucher). 
® Legis Allegor, 1. 82, 


Mere Natural Sources Credible ? 


4l 


RE 


Supreme Father of the universe, but after the norm of the 
second God, who is His Word.”? 


There are also four remarkable texts in which 
the Logos is called his Son. Thus on Zech. vi. 12, 
where the subject is the “ Branch,” 


“for this eidest Son the Father of the universe made to spring 
forth, whom He elsewhere called First-born ; and He, when 
begotten, imitating the ways of the Father, looking to his 
archetypal patterns fashioned the species of things.” ? 


Again, in the same book of Philo: 


‘‘ Let Him strive to be adorned after His first-begotten Logos, 
the eldest angel, subsisting as a many-named archangel : for He 
is called beginning, and name of God, and Logos, and the model 
Man, and seeing Israel.” 


Once more, in a striking paraphrase of the 23rd 
Psalm, which, however, is not applied to the 
Church, but to the universe, Philo thus speaks: 

‘‘ Having set up His right Logos, His only begotten Son, who 
shall assume the charge of this sacred flock, as a certain deputy 
of a great King.’ 4 

The last of these passages, where the word “Son” 
is expressly used, is in speaking in The Life of Moses 
of the work of the High Priest : 


‘‘For it was necessary that He who was consecrated to the 
Father of the universe, should make use, as a Paraclete, of a 
Son, most perfect in virtue, both for the amnesty of sins, and 
supply of most liberal blessings.” ® 


Similar to this Christian-like idea of Sonship is 


1 In Genesin (11. 148. Aucher). 
2 De Confus. Ling, 1. 415, 
* De Agricultura. 1. 308. 


3 Jbid. 1, 427. 
© De Vita Mosis (11.§156.) 


Passages in 
Philo in 
which the 
Logos is 
called God’s 
Son.—On 
Zech. vi. 12, 
etc, 


Paraphrase 
of the 23rd 
Psalm. 


42, 


Is the Evolution of Christianity from 


The Father 
said to be 
the 

‘* Fountain” 
of the Son. 


The Logos 
spoken of as 
an angel. 


The Word 
regarded as 
Mediator. 


The title 
Logos con- 
nected with 
moral 
operations, 
but more 
commonly 
in relation 
to creation 
and provi- 
dence. 


another expression, destined often to recur after- 
wards in Christian theology, where the Father was 
said to be the “‘ Fountain” of the Son. ‘“ God 
rules, who is the fountain of the eldest Logos.” ? 
Not on the same plane of elevation, but still re- 
markable are the passages which, in dealing with 
Oid Testament texts, speak of the Logos as an 
angel. Thus in reference to angelic warning, as in 
the case of Balaam :? 


‘«The Logos is the Divine Angel that leads us, and that takes 
obstacles out of our path.” ® 


And in connexion with the same idea, that of 
Mediator comes in: 


“*Of necessity the Word, which is called Angel, is constituted 
as it were Arbiter, and Mediator.’ 4 


This title of the Logos is connected with moral 
operations ; but a more common representation of 
His function as something intermediate, is in re- 
lation to creation and providence, as an instrument 
divinely used: 


““The shadow of God is His Logos, using which as an in- 
strument, He made the world.” 5 


And again : 


‘* The Logos is older than created things, on whom taking hold 
as on a helm the pilot of the universe steers all things, and when 
He fashioned the world He used this instrument, for the fault- 
less subsistence of things then completed.’ ® 


1 Quod. Det. Potiort Insid, 1. 207. 
8 Quod. Deus Immut., 1. 299. 
8 Legis Allegor. 1. 106. 


2 Num. xxii. 31. 
* In Exodum (m1. 476. Aucher). 
6 De Migratione Abrahami, 1. 437. 


Mere Natural Sources Credible 2 


43 


When, however, we turn to other expressions 
mixed up with these utterances that seem almost 
to coincide with the Christian statement of the 
Trinity, we are painfully conscious of a great in- 
coherence and indecision. In addition to the vague 
and shadowy distinctions already cited, that stop 
short of real personal difference, one or two testi- 
monies may be produced that appear clearly to 
contradict the idea of equality. Thus: 


“Since it is necessary for the rational soul of men to bear the 
type of the Divine Word, since God the most rational nature 
is superior to the first Word, He who is superior to the Word, 
holds a place in a better and singular kind (species),.” 3 


And again, still more expressly, speaking of 
Abraham seeing the place afar off,? and allegorizing 
“the place” as the Logos, he says: 


‘* But there is an ambiguity of two different things, of which 
the one is the Divine Logos, the other the God who is before 
the Logos. He who is guided by wisdom comes to the former 
place, finding as the head and end of good pleasure the Divine 
Logos, in whom being, he has not yet come to the God who 
really is, but sees Him afar off; or rather is not able to see Him 
afar off; but that God is far from every creature, this only he 
sees: and that the conception of Him has been lodged very far 
from every human mind. Not even then allegorizing the place, 
has he laid hold of the Cause; but the meaning is this, he came 
to the place, and looking up with his eyes, he saw the ‘very 
place’ to which he had come, afar off from the unnameable, 
unspeakable, and, by every idea, incomprehensible God.” ® 


It is impossible, I think, to conceive anything 


1 In Genesin (11. 148. Aucher) 2 Gen, xxii. 14 
3 De Somniis, 1. 631. 


Mixture of 
incoherent 
and 
indecisive 
utterances 
with more 
distinctly 
Trinitarian 
ones in 
Philo. 


The idea of 
equality in 
the Trinity 
contra-~ 
dicted. 


Abraham 
seeing the 
place afar off 
allegorized, 


44 


Is the Evolution of Christianity from 


The Father 
greater than 
the Son. 


The doctrine 
of the 
Incarnation, 
which has 
no place 

in Philo, 
reconciles 
the 
apparently 
conflicting 
statements 
of Scripture. 


less in harmony with the great Christian truth em- 
bodied in John i. 18: 

‘“*No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten 
Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath declared 
Him.” 

Christian theology, no doubt, in constructing its 
doctrine of the Trinity, has had to reckon with 
those texts of Scripture which speak of the Father 
as greater than the Son. But it has here had a 
doctrine of Incarnation as a medium of reconcile- 
ment, for which Philo had no room; and the very 
strongest of the utterances of any adherent of any 
of the creeds which allow for a priority of order in 
the Father in relation to the Son, preserve at the 
same time an equality of the Son to the Father, a 
necessary existence, and a capacity of fully re- 
vealing and communicating the Godhead, of which 
in Philo there is here the unhappy denial. His 
doctrine is at best a kind of wavering between a 
vague Sabellianism on the one hand, and a type of 
Arianism on the other, with a glimpse here and 
there of the Christian position, because inherited 
from the Old Testament. It may be a dim groping 
and longing which Christianity came to fulfil. But 
it could not be out of such materials that the grand, 
coherent, imperishable doctrine of the Trinity, 
built up not by human subtlety, but by sober in- 
duction out of the consenting texts of Scripture, 


could be formed. 


Mere Natural Sources Credible ? 


45 


(2.) It now remains, secondly, to show, in how 
scanty a relation to redemption the Logos doctrine 
of Philo is set forth. Of the sixty and more pas- 
sages in which that doctrine is touched upon, there 
are not more than ten that can be said to bear upon 
the doctrine of men’s recovery to God as sinners. 
In the New Testament we know it is entirely 
different ; and how, whateveris said of the Logos as 
the Creator and Upholder of the universe, as the 
angei or interpreter of Divine counsels, and even as 
the image of God, is made to bear predominantly on 
Incarnation and Redemption. But here also, as 
everywhere, there is a better element in Philo, an 
element of truth that in its struggle to advance 
further is even pathetic. Thus there is a remark- 
able passage in which the Logos is spoken of as a 
convincer of sin, and thus as a healer of it: 

** Let us, therefore, who are convinced of our own offences, 
entreat God rather to correct us than to leave usalone. For 
leaving us alone, He will make us the servants, not of His 
merciful self, but of the unmerciful creation ; whereas correcting 
us, mildly and gently, as a gracious Being, He will redress our 
sins, having sent forth His wise-making Reprover, His own 
Logos into the soul, by whom overawing and rebuking it for its 
excesses, He will heal it,’’! 

As the work here ascribed to the Logos touches in 
a remarkable way that of the Holy Spirit in 
John xvi. 8, so it may be stated that the Divine 
Spirit (though without mention there of the 


2 Quod Det. Potiori Insid, 1. 219. 


Few of the 

passages on 
the Logos in 
Philo have 

any relation 
to redemp- 

tion. 


In the New 
Testament 
everything 
said of the 
Logos bears 
on Incarna-~ 
tion and 
Redemption. 


Element of 
truth in 
Philo. 


The Logos 
spoken of 
as a 
convincer 
of sin and 
a healer of 
it. 


46 


Is the Evolution of Christianity from 


The Divine 
Spirit said 
to have 
been made 
to lodge in 
Abraham. 


Official 
mediation 
inculcated 
repeatedly 
in Philo 


The 
Incarnation 
approached, 
but shrunk 
back from, 
by Philo 


His view of 
the High 
Priest to 
whom the 
Logos is 
compared by 
him. 


Logos) is said to have been made to lodge in 
Abraham— 


‘the Divine Spirit, which breathed from above dwelt in his 
soul, surrounding the body with singular beauty, and giving 
persuasion to the words.” ? 


Similar to these passages there is a general idea 
of what may be called, “ official mediation” re- 
peatedly inculcated. The following comes perhaps 
nearest to Christianity : 


‘The Father who begat the universe gave to the archangel 
and eldest Logos the choice gift, that standing as on a 
boundary he should separate the thing made from the Maker. 
He is the intercessor for the mortal that is always decaying with 
the incorruptible, and the ambassador for the ruler with the 
subject, and He rejoices in the gift, and exalts it, speaking thus, 
‘And I stand between the Lord and you’ (Num. xvi. 48, where 
Philo’s reading is peculiar), being neither unbegotten as God, 
nor begotten as we, but the middle of extremes, acting as a 
hostage with both, on the side of the Father of men, a pledge 
not at any time to wipe out and remove the whole race, thus 
leaving no world at all; and on the part of the offspring, a 
ground for the good hope of the merciful God never neglecting 
His own creature.” ? 


This doctrine of mediation brings Philo near to 
Incarnation, but he shrinks back; for in a parallel 
passage, where the Logos is not mentioned, but he 
is speaking of the High Priest, to whom elsewhere 
the Logos is compared, he says, 

‘*He comprises the whole race of men, or rather, to speak 
the truth, He is a certain nature, bordering on God, less than 
He, and better than men, for when the High Priest enters into 


the holiest, man shall not be there (Lev. xvi. 17). If he is not 
man, what is he then ? Is he God ? I should not say so (for the 


1 De Nobilitate, u. 443 2 Quis Rerum Div. Heres, 1. 502, 


Oe 


Mere Natural Sources Credible ? 


47 


inheritance of this name the chief Propheb Moses received when 
being in Egypt, he was called a God unto Pharaoh (Ex. vii. 1). 
Neither is he man; but one who touches both extremes, the 
foot and the head.”? 
Thus it would seem to be neither a real divinity, 
nor a real humanity that belongs to the archetypal 
High Priest, nor through him to the Logos; and 
the resemblance of this mediatorship to the Chris- 
tian is destroyed. 

It is affecting to see how Philo, without any 
contact with the distinctively Christian view of 
Incarnation and Sacrifice as the means of pro- 
curing spiritual benefits, or what are called in 
Christian language, “benefits of redemption,” still 
connects these or some of them with the Logos. 
Thus the Logos resembles Abraham interceding 
for Sodom? ‘Thus also He is the anti-type of the 
cities of refuge : 


‘‘ Surely the oldest, and strongest, and best metropolis (I 
cannot say city merely) is the Divine Logos, to whom first it 
is of most advantage to flee. . . He exhorts him, therefore, 
who is able to run quickly, to make with breathless haste for the 
Supreme Divine Logos, who is the fountain of wisdom, that 
having drawn from its tide he may instead of death find as 
a prize, everlasting life.” * 

It is only necessary to recall how in a formerly 
quoted passage, the High Priest (without any ex- 
planation of the nature of sacrifice) in sacrificing 


to the Father, made use “as a Paraclete of His Son 


1 De Somniis, 1. 683-4. 
2 De Cong. Erud. Grat. 1. 535, 3 De Profugis, 1. 560. 


an typal 
archetypa 
High Priest 
neither a 
real divinity 
nor a real 
humanity ; 
hence the 
resemblance 
to the 
Christian 
mediator- 
ship 
destroyed, 


Some of 
the ** bene- 
fits of 
redemption” 
connected 
L Sas Mes 

8 bY 
Philo. 


48 Ts the Evolution of Christianity from 


a 


most perfect in virtue, for the amnesty of sins, 
Conformity and the supply of most liberal blessings.” And in 


to the Logos 
held forth 


as the one striking passage more, conformity to the Logos 


highest gift 


ot God. himself is held forth, as the highest gift of God. 


‘They shall obtain acceptance from the Saviour and merciful 
God, who has held out to the human race the best and greatest 
gift, affinity to His own Logos, from whom as from an archetype 


the human mind is derived.” ? 


To sum up all in perhaps his most fervent and 
passionate utterance, like what might have been 
the language of St. Bernard, or any Christian 


mystic, he speaks of the Logos as, 


‘the cup-bearer aud symposiarch of God, not differing from 
drink, but himself unmixed, the brightness, the sweetness, the 
effusion, the desire, the ambrosial medicine (for we must use 


poetic words) of joy and gladness.” ? 


The Language like this may be sufficiently accounted 


influence 


of the for by the strong hold which the doctrine of the 


doctrine of 


the Logos Tuogos in the Book of Proverbs, as the Fountain 


of Proverbs 


of Frove’s of all life and benediction, had taken upon the 


mind and 


heart mind and heart of Philo; and while we cannot 
forgive, we blame less, his mistake as to the sacri- 
ficial system, and his silence as to great oracles 
like the'53rd of Isaiah.2 But how any writer or 


1 De Exsecrationibus, i. 436. 2 De Somniis, 1. 691. 


8 The writer has made no use of the passage, given in Aucher’s 
translations from the Armenian (In Exodum Vol. u. 545), 
because this may be regarded, though Aucher has not said so, 
as in part at least, a Christian gloss. The gloss is here printed 
in Italics. ‘‘Verbum est sempiternum sempiterni Dei, caput 
universorum, sub quo pedum instar aut reliquorum quoque 
membrorum, subjectum jacet universus mundus, supra quem 


Mere Natural Sources Credible ? 


49 


writers could develop these hints into distinctive 
Christianity ; how they could seize on the incarna- 
tion, here so entirely neglected, and make it the 
key-stone of an arch, which otherwise has none; 
how they could pass from Philo’s Logos, to Jesus 
Christ, and Him crucified; how they could for his 
bright but colourless fountain bring in a fountain 
filled with blood, and make this alike the hope of 
earth, and the joy and song of heaven; and how, 
once more, out of a scheme where the Son and 
Holy Ghost are confounded, they should build up 
a solid and effectual Trinity, where the Spirit is 
the final Paraclete and the living pulse of a new 
and world-wide society; this the theorists of 
Philonian development have failed to make even 
plausible, far less probable. And it will be found 
much harder to explain Philo himself as a struggle 


transiens constanter stat. Non quidem eo quod Christus dominus 
est, supra mundum transiens sedet—sedes enim ejus juxta swum 
patrem est deum—sed quia necessarium est mundo ad perfectam 
plenitudinem pro cura habenda exactissimz dispensationis, 
atque pro propria pietate omnis generis ipsius divini verbi ; 
sicut eb animantia opus habent capite, sine quo vivere non 
possunt.” (‘The eternal word of the eternal God is the 
head of the universe, under which, like feet or other members, 
the whole world lies subjected, and above which, in his passing 
to and fro, he constantly stands. Not indeed because Christ is 
Lord, does he passing over the world sit, for his seat is beside God 
his Father, but because this is necessary to the world in order to 
its perfect fulness in securing its most exact administration, and 
from due piety of every kind towards the Divine Word himself ; 
as even the animals have need of a head, without which they 
cannot live.”) 


The hints 
of Philo 
could never 
have been 
developed 
into 
distinctive 
Christianity. 


The 
Philonian 
theorists 
have never 
made the 
development 
probable or 
even 
plausible, 


50 


Is the Evolution of Christianity from 


Sinan ieee ee es 


The writings 
of Philo 
throw no 
light on the 
prominence | 
of suffering, 
weakness, 
and death, 
in the 
Gospels. 


Philo's 
theory could 
never have 
created or 
controlled 

a movement 


like 
Ohbristianity. 


of opposites, than out of any residual force of the 
right kind in him to give an origin to Christianity. 

Let it be added, that as by the testimony of 
Strauss and others, the great difficulty now is to 
account for the prominence of suffering, weakness, 
and death in the biographies of Jesus in the New 
Testament, the writings of Philo are the last 
quarter to which the authors of these incomparable 
narratives could have fled for any light or help in 
the construction of them or their adaptation to 
Jewish pre-possessions, since his writings never 
raise the question of how the Divine can empty itself 
or pass through obscuration to more visible glory. 

In the light of these internal difficulties the 
outward hindrances to any probable contact at any 
early enough date of Philo and his ideas, with 
founders and moulders of Christianity, may be 
passed over. Nor is it necessary to urge the ob- 
jection that if the Logos doctrine of Philo had had 
a determining effect on Christianity, it is not easy 
to see how on ordinary laws of diffusion, it should 
not have influenced more, and coloured more, the 
entire New Testament. This tract does not exclude 
a tolerably early knowledge to studious men of 
Philo’s special theory. It only denies that it could 
possibly—beyond what was in it of elsewhere ac- 
cessible Old Testament truth—have created or 
controlled a wide-spread popular movement like 
Christianity. 


Mere Natural Sources Credible ? 


51 


We thus seem to leave each of the most plausible Th 


theories of the human origin of Christianity behind 
us—a visible failure; and the sense of insuff- 
ciency is increased by the fact that no one failure 
at any point relieves the rest, or holds out the 
hope that under some happier auspices the evolu- 
tion theory will achieve more, and fill up the gap 
that now lies between its premises and its con- 
clusions. No one can say with any truth that 
progress has been made in this direction, that 
regions once assigned to special creation have been 
recovered to the realm of law, and that the 
towering grandeur and singularity of this one 
religion want only a few missing links to bind it on 
—humbled and captive—to the other religions and 
moralities of the world. None of these systems 
can in turn set up a claim to supernatural birth. 
The old classic Paganism does not thus resist the 
attempt to carry it up by nature-worship and 
apotheosis from some lower type, though even here 
the Christian must feel how much better it is 
explained as the degeneracy of an older revelation. 
Hinduism can be resolved into a great pantheistic 
development, half religion, half philosophy, with 
a multitude of polytheistic outgrowths, varying 
from epoch to epoch, and as a Christian believes, 
wrecks and survivals of the primeval monotheism. 
Buddhism too, admits of solution, as a reaction, on 
the same idealistic ground, from the pantheism of 


C) 
evolutionary 
theory of 
the origin of 
Christianity 
a visible 
failure. 


The 
grandeur 


an 
singularity 
of 
Christiani 
unimpaired, 


No other 
system can 
claim a 
supernatural 
birth. 


Hinduism 
can be re- 
solved into 
a great 
pantheistic 
develop- 
ment, 


Buddhism 
admits of 
solution as 
a reaction 
from India’s 
pantheism, 


52 


Is the Evolution of Christianity from 


Zoroastrian— 
ism does not 
transcend 
the efforts 
of human 
reason. 


Mohammed- 
anism an 
agglomerate 
of Arabian 
tradition, 
Judaism and 
Christianity. 


India into a virtual Atheism, with many of the 
inconsistencies of a religion, as shown in its alliance 
with polytheism, and, as in Confucianism and 
ancient Stoicism, with a large development on the 
human side of ethical independence and elevation. 
The Zoroastrian belief will hardly be supposed to 
transcend the efforts of human reason, founded as 
it is upon an apparent dualism, which, however, 
reason cannot long endure, and which has more 
and more limited the scope of this now decayed 
system. When we turn to Mohammedanism, the 
natural evolutionist and the Christian will alike 
deny it anything of a proper Divine birth, since 
though fused in the soul of a great personality, 
who was able to convey his own enthusiasm to 
others, and to stamp it by means all too human 
upon the face of the world, it is a manifest con- 
glomerate of Arabian tradition, Judaism and 
Christianity, the first lifted up to meet the two 
last in a reduced and abated shape, and without 
even the shadow of new ideas beyond them, such 
as its founder claimed in his character of the 
Paraclete whom Christ had promised; so that 
those who expect evolution to run in the line of 
chronology are here corrected, and may as soon 
make Mormonism, as it also professes to be, the 
last development both of the Old and New 
Testament. 

When from the obviously inferior level of these 


Mere Natural Sources Credible ? 


53 


religions, and also from their historical failure, we 
return to the claims of Christianity, including 
Judaism, to be in the proper sense Divine, as 
originating and carrying through a grand scheme 
of redemption, culminating in the Incarnation and 
Atonement of the eternal Word of God, we find 
that we have recovered the clue to a true develop- 
ment of which that of mere rationalized philosophy 
or empty speculative theology is buta distorted image. 
We have gone back to the cradle of a once happy 
race, before redemption was needed, and can 
account for the traditions of a golden age. Out of 
these memories and the traces of early revelation, 
we can account for the remnants of truth both as 
bearing upon religion in general, and upon sacri- 
ficial and other monuments of a system of grace, 
that linger amidst the darkness of a fall. We 
trace the beginnings of prophecy, helped by the 
light of primitive sacrifice. The call of Abraham, 
like the record of the Deluge, discriminates a new 
start of covenant faith from the legends of idolatry, 
The Mosaic legislation follows, with its Decalogue, 
its growing Messianic hope, its grand ritual of 
propitiation, suited to the childhood of the world, 
but impossible to have grown up out of a mere 
nature-worship with its feasts and seasons. Theo- 
eracy consolidates the religion of a separate people; 
and prophecy, its necessary organ, with priesthood, 
at once guards the present by its moral office, and 


Christianity 
gives the 
clue to the 
true develop 
ment of 
which 
rationalised 
philosophy 
or empty 
speculative 
theology is 
a distorted 
image. 


The 
memories of 
early 
revelation 
account for 
the rem- 
nants of 
truth that 
linger amid 
the darkness 
of a fall. 


The 
beginnings 
of prophecy, 


The call of 
Abraham. 


The Mosaic 
legislation 
and Mes- 
sianic hope, 


04 


Is the Evolution of Christianity from 


The Old 

‘Testament 
carried on 
to its close, 


God plans, 
yet the laws 
of history 
are 
observed. 


The 
vindication 
of the 
Jewish dis- 
pensation. 
The Gentile 
world not 
beyond the 
pale of 
preparation 
for Christ. 


The fulfil- 
ment of 
prophecy 
dependent 
on the 
fulness of 
time, 


unveils the future, with a glow of hope from direct 
inspiration which disowns the parallel with heathen 
oracles. This system of preparation with its 
successive advances carries the Old Testament 
onward to its close; and all the while the defeats 
and captivities of the people are the victories of 
their religion and the means of its purification and 
diffusion. Everything is in harmony with the 
laws of a Divine revelation, where God necessarily 
must plan and order, and where, though the laws 
of history are still observed, the human element 
cannot be supreme. Hence there 1s enough of 
development to make man free and history possible, 
and enough of revelation and providence to save 
grace from failure, and history from barrenness. 
Thus the Jewish dispensation has its great vindi- 
cation; and even the Gentile world, with the 
gropings of its superstition and the struggles of its 
philosophy, does not le beyond the pale of this 
preparation for Christ. Plato comes in, but not as 
an originator of Christianity, or day-star compelling 
its dawn, but rather as an infant crying for it in 
the dark; and Philo, still more visibly, because in 
its own twilight, though with face half-averted 
from its risng beam. We have seen the failure 
of Strauss to construct out of its mistaken pro- 
phecies, the reality; but even its true prophecies 
could not have fulfilled themselves, partly from 
their own obscurity, and still more from their 


Mere Natural Sources Credible ? 


When 
Christ came, as was proper to One who was the 
First and Last, He ‘finished the work and cut it 
short in righteousness ; ” 
into so brief a life and ministry (a sign among 
others of its higher descent), a fulness of work, 
suffering, teaching and influence, which accom- 
plished all the past and heralded all the future. 
The same law of development still has its place; 
yet not beyond Christ, but only to the manifesta- 
tion of what is in Him; and this we see in the 
completion of the New Testament Canon, in the 
foundation and growth of the early Church, and 
in the perpetual expansion of Christianity. The 
presence of Christ by His Spirit in the Church 
necessitates progress, though amidst apparent 
decay, as the earth is being replenished and sub- 
dued, even amidst the sterner seasons; and there 
is in Christianity what no other religion has ever 
approached, a power of renovation, of reform in 


dependence on “the fulness of the time.” 


and thus was condensed 


doctrine, of renewal in life, and of grand out- t 


bursts in social, political and world-wide influence, 
which connect it not with ordinary development, 
but with Divine history. Some faint shadow of 
this is found in human discovery, in the march of 
civilisation and in the revival of liberty, where the 
dropped thread of ages is taken up and the ex- 
tinguished torch glows with its ancient fires. But 
this too, after all, is part of a plan, of which the 


dd 


Christ 
finished 
the work. 


The law of 
development 
in the 
completion 
of the New 
Testament 
Canon, 


The 
presence of 
Christ in 
the Church 
necessitates 
progress, 


The power 
of renova-~ 


on in 
Christianity. 


56 


The Evolution of Christianity. 


CT Sa a eae 


The 
kingdom of 
Christ the 
abiding 
centre of 

a world- 
renewing 
plan. 


Christianity 
not only 
Divine in 
its origin 
but in its 
fruits and 
possibilities 
as the hope 
of the 
world. 


The claims 
and respon- 
sibilities 
that it 
brings with 
it. 


kingdom of Christ is the one abiding and unshaken 
centre, which slowly and to us mysteriously 1s 
renewing all things with its own youth, and holding 
out to all institutions, as to all souls that are not 
incurably hostile to it, the promise of its own 
universal victory. It would be an imperfect re- 
commendation of Christianity if we could only 
prove it Divine in its origin, and not also in its 
mighty fruits and possibilities as the very hope of 
the world. And let it be added, that it would 
also be an inadequate pleading for it which over- 
looked the urgency of claims and serious responsi- 
bilities which its underivable and sole greatness 
brings with it, and from the height of which its 
Divine Author could with such authority say: 

‘¢ All things are delivered unto Me of My Father: and no man 
knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man 


the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will 
reveal Him.” 


jUnde 4 DAL O'S dein dated fl 


IN RELATION TO 


Holes, WORLDA EH AE NOW oS 


THAT WHICH IS TO COME 


BY 


SIR J. WILLIAM DAWSON, C.M.G., LL.D., F.R.S. 


Argument of the Gract, 


—#O0e 


Arter showing that the creative days of Genesis are days 
of God, Divine periods or ages, the Tract goes on to show 
the true nature of the Sabbath Law of the Old Testament, 
as a commemoration of God’s finished work of Creation and 
entrance into His Sabbatism, of the loss of this Sabbatism 
by man at the Fall, and of the promise of its restora- 
tion by a Redeemer. In this way it is proposed to explain 
the position of the Sabbath law in the Decalogue, the 
importance attached to it in the Old Testament, and its 
necessary change into the Lord’s Day as the memorial 
of the finished work of Redemption which fulfils the 
promise of the Old Testament Sabbath. Certain practical 
deductions from these considerations, bearing on the 
obligation and use of the Lord’s Day, are stated in the 
concluding portion. 


THE DAY OF REST 


IN 
RELATION TO THE WORLD THAT NOW IS, 
AND THAT WHICH IS TO COME, 


—+ 7g Petn— 


“== HERE are wonderful links of connection 
hig x asi between the ways of God in creation, 
a feed in providence, and in grace, which are 
always deserving of study, more espe- 
cially when they are pointed out by the Word of 
God itself. This is eminently the case with the 
Sabbath law. Placed in the middle of the Ten 


Commandments, between the precepts that relate ; 


to God and those that relate to man, it must have 
a moral and spiritual significance. Providing for 
a weekly day of rest from labour for all men, good 


and evil, and even for the animals under their 


Links of 
connection 
between 
creation, 
providence, 
and grace, 


The place 


The 
provision 
it makes. 


control, it should have a direct relation to our | 


external well-being. Enforced by a reason carrying 
our minds back to the original creation of the 
world, it should be connected in some way with 
the great work of constructing the earth for man, 
and with his own earliest relations with his Creator. 
I desire in this Tract to direct attention more par. 


The reason 
of i 


4y The Day of Rest. 


ene 


ticularly to this last aspect of the Sabbath law, 
and to its bearing on the others. 
At first sight it seems a very simple explanation 
of the reason annexed to the commandment, that 
The days of God made the world and things therein in six 
natural days, and rested on the seventh, and that 
He enjoins on us the following of His example. 
But the more we think of this the more unsatis- 
factory it becomes. The parallel does not hold 
good. If it pleased God to make the world in six 
of our ordinary days and to rest on the seventh, 
this was a work done once for all, and bears no 
analogy to our recurring weeks of toil and days 
of rest. Nor is there any apparent need for our 
thus seeming to imitate God’s procedure, if that 
No inherent were the only reason. Still less does one see any 


moral obli- 


tion to *. . e e . 
Seb one: inherent moral obligation resting on us to give up 


seventh | one-seyenth of our time on account of such imi- 


can tation. ‘This incongruity is only increased by the 
evident intention of the Lawgiver to represent the 
Sabbath not as a new institution but as a primitive 
practice, to be remembered and continued. He 
says “remember” the Sabbath day, as if speaking 

The imped of an old institution. There is also in the six days 

of the mm. of labour animplied reference to the curse incurred 

mandment. by man at the fall, and in so far as the seventh 
day is concerned, a partial relaxation of this eating 
of bread with the sweat of the brow. 


It has long appeared to the writer that the 


The Day of Rest. 


proper significance of this command is reached 
only when we bear in mind that the creative days 
of the first chapter of Genesis are really days of 
God, Divine periods—olamim, or ages, as they are 
elsewhere called !—or, which amounts to the same 
thing, that they are intended to represent or to in- 
dicate such ages of God’s working. This conclusion 
I desire to rest not so much on the discoveries of 
modern science, though these fully vindicate it, as 
on the usage and statements of the Bible writers 
and their contemporaries, and of the early Christian 
Church. The writer of the introduction to Genesis 
sees no incongruity in those early days which 
passed before natural days were instituted; “ in- 
effable days”? as Augustine well calls them. He 
does not represent the seventh day as having an 
evening and morning like the others, nor does he 
hint that God resumed His work on the eighth 
day. In chapter second he represents the world 
as produced in one day, evidently using the word 
in an indefinite sense. Further, in the succeeding 
literature of the Old Testament, while we have no 
actual statement that the creative days were 
natural days, or that the world was made in a 
short period, we find the term olam or age applied 
to God’s periods of working, and in the 104th 
Psalm, which is a poetical narrative of creation, 
the idea conveyed is that of lapse of time, without 


1 Psalm xe. 


The days 
of creation 
Divine 
periods or 
ages. 


The seventh 
day in 
Genesis has 
no evening 
and 
morning. 


The word 
day indefi- 
nitely used 
in the 
second 
chapter of 
Genesis. 


The term 
*“olam’”’ 
in the 
later books 
of the Old 
Testament. 


. 


The teach- 
ing of our 
Lord and 
the Apostles. 


The doctrine 
of * time- 
worlds’”’ 
common to 
revelation 
and science. 


Worlds 
exist in 
time as 
well as in 
space. 


The Day of Rest. 


division into days. We shall find in the sequel that 
the same idea is contained in the teaching of our 
Lord, and of the Apostolic Epistles, and was familiar 
to the primitive Church. That we may fully un- 
derstand the bearing of these facts on the Sabbath 
question, it will be necessary for us to consider in 
some detail a doctrine common to the teaching of 
the Word of God, and of natural and physical 
science, and which we may designate as the doctrine 
of “time-worlds,” or of worlds existing in ages of 
time as distinguished from “ space-worlds,” or 
worlds considered merely as of certain dimen- 
sions, and existing in space. 

When we speak of the world or the universe, 
the ordinary hearer has perhaps before his mind 
merely the idea of bodies occurring in space ; and 
the vast discoveries of modern times as to the 
distances and magnitudes of the heavenly bodies 
have contributed to fill the minds of men with 
conceptions of the immensity of space, perhaps 
to the exelusion of another direction of thought 
Worlds must, however, exist 
This idea is very 


equally important. 
in time as well as m space. 
familiar to the mind of the geologist, who traces 
the long history of the earth through successive 
periods, and also knows that each succeeding age 
bas seen it different from its condition on those 
which preceded it. This consideration is also 
before the mind of the physical astronomer, who 


The Day of Rest. 


thinks of suns and planets as passing through 
different successive conditions, and as actually 
presenting different stages in the present. 

This point is curiously illustrated by a contro- 
versy which raged some time ago as to whether the 
planets and other heavenly bodies may be inhabited 
worlds, and especially whether they may be in- 
habited by rational beings. 

If we look at this question with reference to our 
own world, we shall find that each successive 
stage of its existence whether as a vaporous mass, 
as a heated molten globe, as the abode of merely 
inferior animals, has been of vast duration as com- 
pared with the time in which it has been in- 
habited by man. Farther, it is gradually approach- 
ing the condition in which it will no longer be 
habitable; and unless some renovating process 
shall be applied to it, this desolate condition may 
be of indefinite duration. Thus, if we imagine 
ourselves to be beings not resident on the earth, 
and that we could visit it only at one period 
of its history, the chances would be vastly 
against our seeing it at that precise stage of its 
existence in which it is fitted for the residence of 
rational beings. On the other hand, if we were 
capable of taking in its whole duration, we would 
comprehend that it has its particular stage for 
being the abode of intelligence, and that it’ has a 
definite and intelligible history as a world ir. time, 


> 


The 
question as 
to whether 
other worlds 
may be 
inhabited, 


The world 
before man 
appeared. 


The 
approaching 
condition of 
the world, 


Its history 
parallel to 
that of 
other 
worlds. 


8 The Day of Rest. 


which may be more or less parallel to that of all 
other worlds. 
This truth also appears if we consider other 
The moon. planetary bodies. The moon may have been in- 
habited at a time when our earth was luminous 
and incandescent, but it has passed into a state of 
Mars. senility and desolation. The planet Mars, which 
seems physically not unlike the earth, may be in a 
condition similar to that of our world in the older 
Jupiter and geological periods. Jupiter and Saturn are pro- 
bably still intensely heated and encompassed with 
vaporous “deeps,” and may perhaps aid in sup- 
porting life on their satellites, while untold ages 
must elapse before those magnificent orbs can 
arrive at a stage suitable for maintaining life like 
that on the earth. Long after all these ages have 
passed, and when all the planets have grown old 
and lifeless, the sun itself, now a fiery mass, may 
arrive at a condition suited for living and rational 
beings. 
Ait wortule  Lhus the physical conditions of our planetary 
wie iis system teach that if we suppose all worlds capable 
of supporting life, all are not so at one time, and 
that as ages pass, each may successively take up 
this réle, of which in greater or less degree all may 
at some time or other be capable. So when we 
ascend to the starry orbs, those suns ‘may have 
attendant worlds, some in one stage, some in 
another. There may also be stars and nebulze 


The Day of Rest. 


still scarcely formed, and others which have passed 
far beyond the present state of our sun and _ its 
planets. Thus the universe is a vastly varied and 
progressive scene. At no one time can all worlds 
be seats of such life as we know; but of the count- 
less suns and worlds that exist, thousands or 
millions may at any one time be in this state, while 
thousands of times as many may be gradually 
arriving at it or passing from it. Such are the 
thoughts which necessarily pass through our minds 
when we consider the existence of worlds in time. 
Now these ideas, though rendered more definite 
by modern discoveries, are very old, and they im- 
pressed themselves on the mind of antiquity before 
men could measure the vastness of the universe 
in space. They are also present in Divine re- 
velation, and it is necessary to have them before 
our minds if we would enter into the thoughts of 
the writers of the Old and New Testaments when 
they treat of time and eternity. The several 
stages of the earth in its progress from chaos, the 
prophetic pictures of its changes in the future, as 
stated in the Bible, alike embody the idea of 
time-worlds, or ages of God’s working. It is in 
this aspect that the universe is compared to a 
vesture of God, which He can change as a garment, 
while He Himself remains ever the same.! It is 
in contrast to the eternity of truth that the heavens 


1 Psalm cii, 26. 


The 
universe a& 
varied and 
progressive 
scene, 


These ideas 
ancient, 


They are 
present in 
Divine 
revelation, 


The past 
and future 
stages of 
the earth 
according ta 
the Bible 
embody 

the idea 

of time- 
worlds, 


10 The Day of Rest. 


and earth are said to be passing away, but the 
words of the Redeemer shall never pass away. 
It is with the same reference that we are told that 
“the things which are seen are temporal, the 
things which are unseen are eternal.” ? 

The The use made of the Hebrew word o/am and the 


Hebrew and s . : 
Greek words (treek aion in the sense of age, or even of eternity, 


olam and 


aion bring brings before us still more clearly this Biblical idea 


before us 
the idea of . : 
the idea of of time-worlds. In that sublime “ prayer of Moses 


the man of God” which we have in the 90th 
Psalm, God, who is the “dwelling-place of man in 
generation to generation,” who existed before the 
mountains were brought forth, with whom a 
thousand years are “as a watch in the night,” is 
said to be from “olam to olam,” from “ everlasting 
to everlasting,” as the English version has it, but 
more properly from age to age of those long cosmic 
ages in which He creates and furnishes successive 
worlds. So when God is said to be the “ High and 
lofty One, that inhabiteth eternity,’* it is not 
abstract eternity, but these successive olams, or 
time-worlds, which are His habitation. In the 
God awetls Old Testament, God as revealed to us in His works, 


in the 
successionof dwells in the grand succession of worlds in time, 


worlds in 
time. 


thus continuously and variously manifesting His 

power, a much more living and attractive view of di- 

vinity than the mere abstract affirmation of eternity. 
1 Matt. xxiv. 25. 32 Cor. iv. 18- 


8 This is retained in the Revised Version, which I think . 
unfortunate. * Isaiah lvii, 15. 


The Day of Rest. 


The same thought is taken up and amplified in 
the New Testament. The writer of the Epistle to 
the Hebrews, who treats very specially of the 
relations of the Old Testament to the New, speaks 
of Christ as God’s Son, “ whom He hath appointed 
Heir of all things, by whom also He made the 
worlds,” ! more literally ‘ constituted the aidns or 
ages.” He does not refer, as one might conceive 
from the English translation, to different worlds in 
space, but to the successive ages of this world, in 
which it was being gradually prepared and fitted 
up for man. So Paul, in his doxology at the end 
of the third chapter of the Epistle to the Ephesians, 
ascribes to the Redeemer glory in “all generations 
of the ages or aidns ;””? and in the ninth verse of 
the same chapter he speaks of the gospel as “the 
mystery which from all ages hath been hid in 
God who created all things.” So, also, in the 
eleventh chapter of Hebrews, we are told that 
by faith we understand that “the ages were con- 
stituted by the Word of God.” Another fine 
illustration of this idea is in Paul’s familiar and 
business-like letter to Titus, where he says that 
he lives “in hope of eternal life, which God, who 
cannot lie, promised before the world began, but 
hath in due time manifested His word.”? The 
expression “the world began” here represents the 


1 Heb. i. 2, R.V. margin. 
2 R.V. margin. § Titus i. 2. 


1] 


The same 
thought in 
the New 
Testament, 


Christ con- 
stituting 
the ages, 


in all gener- 
ations of 
the ages. 


The ages 
constituted 
by the Word 
of God. 


12 


The Day of Rest. 


i 


The life of 
the ages, 


The relation 
of the whole 
duration of 
God’s 
working 

to us. 


The light 
thrown on 
the day of 
rest by the 
creative 
days of 
geology. 


“ages of time,” and the “eternal life” is the 
“life of the ages.” Thus what the Apostle 
hopes for is life through the unlimited ages of 
God’s working, and this life has been promised, 
before the beginning of the time-worlds of creation. 
So the whole past, present, and future of God’s 
working has its relation to us, and is included 
under this remarkable idea of ages or time-worlds, 
and is appropriated by faith and hope as the pos- 
session of God’s people. God, who cannot lie, has 
pledged Himself to us from the beginning of those 
long ages in which He founded the earth; He 
has promised us His favour in all the course of 
His subsequent work; He has sealed this promise 
in the mission of His Son, that same glorious Beg 
through whom He arranged all those vast ages of 
creation and providence; and in the strength of 
this promise we can look forward by faith to an 
endless life with Him in all the future ages of His 
boundless working. 

The long creative days of geology may thus be 
shown to throw a most important light on the in- 
stitution of the weekly Sabbath and its continuance 
as the Lord’s day. If it is true that the seventh 
or Sabbath Day of creation still continues, and 
was intended to be a day of rest for the Creator 
and for man made in His likeness, we find in this 
a substantial reason for the place of the Sabbath 
in the Decalogue. Further, by means of our Lord’s 


The Day of Rest. 


13 


declaration in reply to the Pharisees, “My Father 
worketh even until now, and I work,” though God 
has finished His work of creation and now only 
works in providence and redemption, as well as by 
the argument in the fourth chapter of the Epistle to 
the Hebrews, we can carry this idea forward into 
the Christian dispensation. But these facts are so 
important to the right understanding of our subject, 
that it seems necessary to examine them in some 
detail, and in a humble and earnest spirit, ready 
to receive new light and to relinquish old pre- 
possessions, if found to be contrary to the testimony 
of Scripture. 

At first sight, as already hinted, the place of the 
fourth commandment in the Decalogue, and the 
vast importance attached to this law by the Hebrew 
writers, strike us as strange aud anomalous. The 
Sabbath stands as the sole example of a ritual 
observance, in those “ten words,” which otherwise 
mark the most general moral relations of man to 
God and to his fellow-men. Farther, the reason 
given seems trivial. If it is meant that God 
worked on six natural days, and rested on the 
seventh, the question arises, what is He doing on 
the subsequent daysP Does He keep up this al- 
ternation of six days’ work and one day’s rest ; and 
if not, how is this an example to us? If it is 
argued that the whole reason of God’s six days’ 
work and the seventh day’s rest was to give an 


The idea of 

the Sabbath 
as a day of 

rest for the 

Creator and 
man carried 
further. 


The place 
of the 
Sabbath law 
at first 
sight 
strange and 
anomalous. 


14 


The Day of Rest. 


The sup- 
ition that 
ustifies it. 


How the 
Sabbath 
becomes the 
central 
point of all 
religion, 


The 
Sabbath 

he Gospel 
in the 


DVecalogue, 


example, this conveys the absurdity of doing what 


is infinitely great for an end comparatively in- 
significant, and which might have been attained 
by a command without any reason assigned. But 
let us now suppose that when God rested on the 
seventh day He entered into an eon of vast dura- 
tion, intended to be distinguished by the happy 
Sabbatism of man in an Edenic world, and in 
which every day would have been a Sabbath; or 
if there was a weekly Sabbath, it would have been 
but a memorial of a work leading to a perpetual 
Sabbath then enjoyed. Let us farther suppose 
that at the fall of man the Sabbath Day was 
instituted, or obtained a new significance as a 
memorial of an Edenic Sabbatism lost, and also 
as a memorial of God’s promise, that through a 
Redeemer it would be restored. Then the Sabbath 
becomes the central point of all religion, the 
standing and perpetual memorial of an Eden lost, 
and of a paradise to be restored by the coming Seed 
of the woman, as well as a time to prepare our- 
selves for this future life. The commandment, 
‘“Remember the Sabbath Day,” called upon the 
Israelite to remember the fall of man, to remember 
the promise of a Saviour, to look forward to a 
future Sabbatism in the reign of the Redeemer. 
It is thus the Gospel in the Decalogue, giving 
vitality to the whole, and is most appropriately 
placed, and with a more full explanation than any 


Pa ad ee 


ee ee ee ee ee 


The Day of Rest. 


15 


Le 


other command, between the laws that relate to 
God and the laws that relate to man. 

The argument in the Epistle to the Hebrews 
(ch, iv.) may help us to understand this; and it is the 
more valuable that it is not an argument about the 
Sabbath, but introduces it incidentally, and that 
it seems to take for granted the belief in a long or 
olamic Sabbath on the part of those to whom it is 
addressed. It may be freely rendered as follows: 


“For God hath spoken in a certain place (Gen. ii. 2) of the 
seventh day in this wise: ‘And God did rest on the seventh 
day from all His works ;’ and in this place again: ‘ They shall 
not enter into My rest’ (Psa. xcv. 11). Seeing, therefore, it 
still remaineth that some enter therein, and they to whom it 
(God’s Sabbatism) was first proclaimed, entered not in because 
of disobedience (in the Fall, and afterward in the sin of the 
Israelites in the desert), again He fixes a certain day, saying in 
David’s writings, (long after the time of Joshua,) ‘ To-day, if ye 
hear His voice, harden not your hearts.’ (Psa. xcv. 8.) For if 
Joshua had given them rest in Canaan, He would not afterward 
have spoken of another day. There is therefore yet reserved a 
keeping of a Sabbath for the people of God. For He that is 
entered into His rest (that is, Jesus Christ, who has finished 
His work and entered into His rest in heaven), He Himself 
also rested from His own works, as God did from His own. 
Let us therefore earnestly strive to enter into that rest.” 


It is evident that in this passage God’s Sabbatism, 
the rest intended for man in Eden, and for Israel 
in Canaan, Christ’s rest in heaven after finishing 
His work, the rest which may now be enjoyed by 
Christians, and the final heavenly rest of Christ’s 
people, are all indefinite periods mutually related, 
and are all Sabbatisms of which the weekly Sabbath 
is a continuous reminder and token. 


The 


argum 
in the 
Epistle to 
the 


er. 


Hebrews. 


A free 
rendering 
of it. 


The varioua 
Sabbatisms 
indefinite 
periods 
mutually 
related, 


16 The Day of Rest. 


Another In the repetition of the decalogue, in the fifth 


reason for 
th f t * 
command. chapter of Deuteronomy, another reason is an- 


t. 
Gack nexed to the fourth commandment: 
“Remember that thou wast a slave in the land of Egypt, and 
Jehovah thy God brought thee out thence,” 


Betis This is in perfect harmony with the reason in 
between the Exodus, and merely a further development of it. 
The first reason refers to the rest of the Creator, 
the second to the rest from Egyptian bondage 
and the promised rest of Canaan. Both are refer- 
red to by the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
who clearly sees the connection between them. 
phe ur The mistake of supposing them to be mutually 
that they contradictory is peculiar to a certain stage of 
ae, modern hypercriticism. 


hypercriti- 

ca If this is a correct view of the relation of the 
Jewish Sabbath to the Creation and the Fall, it 
enables us to appreciate the force of the injunction 
to “remember” the Sabbath day to keep it holy, 
for in this case the Sabbath must have been no new 

chee institution, but one of primitive obligation, and 


obligation dating from the fall of man at the latest. It also 


Sabbath. ~_ enables us to understand the prevalence of Sabba- 
a tical ideas among nations independent of Hebrew 


sacredness influence, and more especially among the Chaldeans, 


Sabbath . 
among the 270m Whom Abraham came. With them, as 


cnt oka. recent investigations have shown, the seventh day 
nations 


outside of had a certain sacredness attached to it from very 
ebrew ’ 
influence. early times.? 


1 Bayce, Fresh Light from the Ancient Monuments, 


The Day of Rest. 


But what evidence does the Bible itself offer as 


to this? We have no Sabbath law till the time 
of the Exodus, and there is scarcely any reference 
previously to other religious ordinances than those 
of sacrifice and circumcision. Still there are in- 
dications of a Sabbath. We need not perhaps 
attach much importance to the expression “in 
_ process of time,” or more literally, “at the end of 
days,”! applied to the time when Cain and Abel 
offered their sacrifices, as we do not certainly know 
whether a weekly, monthly, or yearly interval is 
intended, We find, however, Noah reckoning by 
weeks in sending out birds from the ark.2 Laban 
and Jacob also reckoned by weeks.2 In Joseph’s 
time also, the Hebrews reckoned by sevens in the 
division of time* So in the early part of the 
Exodus before the giving of the law, the Sabbath 
is incidentally mentioned, in connection with the 
gift of the manna, and in terms which show that 
it was already known as “a solemn rest, a holy 
Sabbath unto the Lord.”> It is interesting, how- 
ever, to observe that there seems to have been no 
pre-intimation of the day, except the gathering of a 
double quantity of manna on the sixth day, and 
that the rulers reported the fact to Moses, as if 
asking instruction, This would seem to imply either 
that the day of rest had fallen into disuse in Egypt, 
Genesis iv. 3. 3 Toi. viii. 12, * Tbid. xxix: 27. 
4 Joid. 1. 3, 12. 5 Exod. xvi. 23, R.V. 
Cc 


17 


Bible 
evidence, 


Early 
indications 


of a 
Sabbath. 


The 
Sabbath 
and manna; 


Moses’ in- 
terpretation 
of the 

in ij unction 
with 


reference 

to the 
gathering of 
a double 
portion of 
manna on 
the sixth 
day. 


18 


The early 
notices 


casual; but 
sufficient 
when taken 
in connec~ 
tion with 
other 
passages, 


Israel in 
Egypt. 


‘Lhe 
Hebrews’ 
experience 
of ceaseless 
labour in 
Egypt. 


The Day of Rest. 


or that its occurrence had not at first seemed to 
the people likely to be recognised as interfering 
with the gathering of necessary food; but Moses 
at once interprets the fact as God’s recognition 
of His own day. 

These early notices of the Sabbath are, it is true, 
few and casual, and remind us of the informal way 
in which the Lord’s Day is introduced in the New 
Testament. But when taken in connection with 
the statement as to God’s hallowing the day at the 
close of His creative work, and with the word 
“remember” in the commandment, they are suffi- 
cient to show the Patriarchal origin of the rest of 
the seventh day, and to carry it back to the gate 
of Eden. 
Israelites when enslaved in Egypt must have been, 
to a great extent at least, deprived of the Sabbath 
rest. The Egyptians, even if they had themselves 
some notion of a Sabbatism, whether on the tenth 
or the seventh day, were not likely to have con- 
sulted the scruples or the comfort of their foreigu 
slaves in such matters, any more than modern 
pleasure-seekers are disposed to regard those of 
railway employés or museum curators. The 
Hebrews had thus known the bitterness of ceaseless 
labour, and so are reminded in Deuteronomy of 
those past sufferings as a reason for their holding 
fast to the privilege restored to them in their 
newly-found freedom. It would be well if those 


We may further note here that the 


L - -_ 2 ea wt ‘~ 
eee eee 


The Day of Rest. 


Be 


modern nations which neglect the Lord’s day 
could see it in this light, and receive it as a part 
of that liberty with which Christ makes His 
people free. 


The post-Mosaic stages of Jewish history show Th 


that the ideas of the connection of the Sabbath 
with the primitive promise of redemption and with 
the liberation of the chosen people, are carried 
onward to the time of Christ. At some periods of 
Jewish history the Sabbath no doubt fell greatly 
into neglect, but these were times of general 
decadence and of lapse into idolatry, and every 
prophetic or priestly revival of religion exalted the 
obligations of the Sabbath. Isaiah laments the 
misuse and neglect of the day, and promises even 
to the eunuchs and the strangers in Palestine that 
if they will “keep the Sabbath, and hold fast by 
God’s covenant ”’ implied in it, He will give them 


‘*a memorial and a name better than of sons and of daughters 
. an everlasting name.” ‘‘I will bring them to My holy 
mountain, and make them joyful in My house of prayer,’ 


It is the same prophet who intensifies its blessings, 
while connecting it with the patriarchs and with 
the covenant of God, in the grand words :— 


“Tf thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, 

From doing thy pleasure on my holy day ; 

And shalt call the Sabbath a delight 

And the holy of Jehovah honourable, 

And shalt honour it, not doing thine own ways, 

Nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words ; 


1 Isa. lvi, 4-8. 


e 
Sabbath in 
the post- 
Mosaic 
stages of 
Jewish 
history till 
the time of 
Christ. 


In the time 
of Isaiah. 


20 


The Day of Rest. 


Jeremiah’s 
view of it. 


Ezekiel’s 
view. 


The 
significance 
of prophetic 
doctrine. 


The effect 
of prophetic 
statements. 


The con- 
sistency of 
Bible 
history on 
the subject 
throughout. 


Then shalt thou delight thyself in Jehovah, 

And I will make thee ride upon the high places of the earth, 
And I will feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father, 
Tor the mouth of Jehovah hath spoken it.” } 


Jeremiah connects in the strongest manner its 
observance, as an efficient cause, with God’s 
blessing, and with prosperity, and regards the 
keeping of the Sabbath as an essential condition 
of national welfare? Ezekiel expressly calls the 
Sabbath a sign or pledge that God would sanctify 
His people. The profound significance of this 
prophetic doctrine becomes evident only when we 
connect the Sabbath with God’s olamic rest, with 
man’s fall and with the promise of a final and 
eternal Sabbatism, in the manner explained in the 
passage already quoted from the Epistle to the 
Hebrews. There can be no doubt that these 
strong statements of the prophets were influential 
with the Jews in the captivity, and were important 
means of preserving them from idolatry and for- 
getfulness of their God, and that when they were 
again delivered from bondage they would return 
with enhanced ideas of Sabbath obligation, akin 
to those of their fathers at the time of the Exodus. 
We see this in the legislation of Nehemiah, and in 
a debased and ritualistic form in the Pharisaic 
strictness of the time of Christ. 

Let us further note here that there is a strict 
consistency throughout in the Biblical history of 
1 Isa, lviii. 13, R.V. 7 Jer. xvii. 24, 25. % Ezek, xx. 12, 


The Day of Rest. 


the Sabbath, from the first announcement of the 


rest of the Creator in the second chapter of Genesis 
till the advent of the promised Redeemer, and no 
room is left here for attributing a late origin to 
the Sabbath law, without throwing the whole 
history into confusion. The Sabbath of Exodus is 
meaningless without the Creative days, the Fall, 
and the promise of Redemption. The testimony of 
the Psalms and Prophets pre-supposes the Sabbath 
law, and its spiritual relations. The attitude of 
the post-exilic Jews pre-supposes and results from 
the law and the prophets. Among the sectaries of 
the time of our Lord, the Sabbath had only ex- 
perienced the fate of other spiritual elements of 
the old dispensation which they had ‘“ made void 
by their traditions,’ substituting form for sub- 
stance. 

These considerations not only give a high and 
spiritual significance to the Sabbath and the Lord’s 
Day, and connect them with God’s great working 
in the universe, and with the fall and redemption 
of man, but they give us practical information 
respecting the manner of keeping the Lord’s 
_ Day and its relation to Christian doctrine and 
practice. | 

We can thus understand the attitude of Christ 
Himself with regard to the Sabbath. While He 
denounced that Pharisaical rigidity which made 
the day a burden rather than a privilege, and which 


21 


The pre- 
suppositions 
of the 
Sabbath of 
the Exodus 
and of the 
Psalms and 
Prophets, 


The 
Sabbath in 
our Lord’s 
time, 


The 
Sabbath 
in its 
various 
relations, 


The 
attitude 
of Christ 
to the 
Sabbath, 


a2 


How the 
Lord’s Day 
is to be 
kept. 


How God 
occupies His 
Sabbatism, 
and how 
Jesus 
occupies 
His. 


The Day of Rest. 


directed attention to minute details of its observance 
rather than to its higher significance, neither His 
example nor His teaching took away from its 
sacredness or diminished its obligation, except 
when opposed to works of necessity or mercy, or 
of direct service to God. The Sabbath was made 
for man as— 


‘*a means, and not an end; worth nothing unless it conduced 
to the end—man’s welfare, man’s refreshment in body, mind, 
and spirit.” } 

Thus if we ask how the Lord’s Day should be 
kept, we are referred at once to the examples of 
God the Father and of God the Son. The Creator’s 
rest with reference to this world, is one of contem- 
plation, and of beneficent and merciful attention 
to its interests. He regards His work and pro- 
nounces it good, and then enters into His rest. So 
the Redeemer entered into His rest when He could 
say, “It is finished.”’ God in His Sabbath sustaims 
and nourishes all His creatures, and relieves their 
wants. This is the force of our Lord’s reply to 
the Pharisees: “My Father worketh even until 
now, and I work,” and they seem so to have 
understood the reference to the creation and to 
Divine providence, that they had no rejoinder 
to make. God occupies His Sabbatism, lost 
to man by the fall, in that work of redemption 
by which it is to be finally restored. The rest 


1 Sunday, by Plumptre, 1866. 


The Day of Rest. 


into which Jesus entered is occupied in preparing 
a place for us, and in acting as our great High- 
Priest in the most holy place on high. In like 


manner our Sabbath should bea time of communion 0 


with God, and a time for acts of love and mercy 
to our fellow-men. There is a Divine activity 
which is not incompatible with, but a fulfilment of 
the Sabbath law, and the examples given by Christ, 
as that of the ox fallen into a pit, the healing of 
diseases, and the Temple service, all point with 
perfect consistency to the ultimate and higher 
benefit of man. 

This was the ground of the often-recurring con- 
flict between the Christ,who knew what the Sabbath 
really means, and the Pharisees, whose tradition 
had turned it into a day of mere austerity and 
unmeaning ritualism. Surely if this was true of 
the Jewish Sabbath, it is true of the Lord’s Day. 
It is to be observed in this connection that when 
Christ claims the Lordship of the Sabbath, He 
does this in the capacity of the Son of Man, “the 
Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath,” for it 
is essentially as Redeemer that He is the Fulfiller 
of the Sabbath law, and so its Lord. May we not 
also see in this a prescience on the part of Christ 
of that change in the day which would be a neces- 
sary consequence of His resurrection on the first 
day of the week, and which world mark the com- 
mencement of the new dispensation by a day com- 


23 


ur 
Sabbath 
should be 
a time for 
communion 
with God, 
and for 
acts of 
love and 
mercy to 
man. 


as to the 
Sabbath, 


24 


The 

connection 

between the 
1d 


Testament 

Sabbath 

and the 

Lord’s Day 
f 


0 
Christians, 


How the 
Lord’s Day 
comes to 
occupy 

the place 
formerly 
occupied by 
the Jewish 
Sabbath. 


What it 
links 
together 


The Day of Rest. 


memorative of this rather than of the work of 
creation. 

The right understanding of the Old Testament 
Sabbath aids us in comprehending the con- 
nection of the Lord’s Day of Christians with the 
Jewish Sabbath. If the latter had a reference to 
a Sabbatism lost by the fall and restored by the 
Redeemer, the Son of Man must be “ Lord of the 
Sabbath,” in the sense of fulfilling and realizing its 
prophetic import. Therefore, the day on which 
He finished His work and entered into His rest 
must of necessity be that to be commemorated by 
Christians, until the time when the return of Christ 
shall inaugurate that final and eternal Sabbatism 
which remains to His people. Thus the Lord's 
Day comes to occupy the same important place 
formerly occupied by the Jewish Sabbath. In this 
as in other things, the Old Testament saints with- 
out us are not complete, for our Lord’s Day is the 
completion of their Sabbath. It links together 
God’s creative work and Christ’s work of redemp- 
tion ; the Sabbatism lost in the fall and restored 
in the Saviour ; the imperfect state of the militant 
Church, still having only a pledge of a rest to 
come, and the Church triumphant, which will enjoy 
this rest for ever. If the Sabbath that carried with 
it the mournful memory of the first sin was holy, 
much more that which points forward, through 


-Ohrist’s finished work and present rest, tn a- 


The Day of Rest. 


25 


heavenly paradise. If the obligation to remember 
it was to the Hebrew equal to that of the most 
binding moral duties, still more must the Lord’s 
Day be a day to be remembered by the Christian, 
as the memorial of Christ’s finished work, and of 
our heirship of all the divine ages, past, present, 
and to come. Thus we see that the moral and 
spiritual dignity and obligation of the Lord’s Day 
rise far above those of the Jewish Sabbath, and 
we Gan understand how naturally the apostles and 
primitive Christians, almost without note of the 
change, and without requiring any positive enact- 
ment, transferred their allegiance from the seventh 
to the first day of the week. 

It may be useful to mention in this connection 


the strong statement in relation to the Jewish } 


Sabbath contained in the Epistle to the Colossians 
(ii. 16). The Christians of Colossee had appa- 
rently been urged by some of their teachers to 
keep the Jewish Sabbath as a matter of legal 
obligation, either along with or instead of the 
Lord’s Day. Paul repudiates this in the words, 


‘‘TLet no man therefore judge you in meat or in drink, or in 
respect of a feast day, or a new moon, or a Sabbath day ;” 


adding as @ reason, 
‘“ which are a shadow of the things to come, but the body (or 
Substance) is Christ’s.” 
There can scarcely be a question that the Old 
Testament Sabbath is intended here, and the as- 


The 
enhanced 
obligation 
of the 
Lord’s Day 


Colossians 


The Old 
Testament 
Sabbath 
intended, 


26 


The 
assertion 

in harmony 
with other 
parts of 
Scripture. 


The 

description 
of the day 
as observed 


by 
Christians, 


The 
meanin 
of Christ’s 


saying 
that ** the 
Sabbath 
was made 
for man.,”? 


The 
Sabbath a 
spiritual 
privilege to 
fallen man. 


sertion that it was a ‘ 


The Day of Rest. 


— 


“shadow” of the future 
coming of Christ is in perfect harmony with the 
testimony of other parts of Scripture, and with 
the idea that when Christ, who is the Substance, 
had come, the old Sabbath, as the anticipatory 
shadow, must pass away. It is to be noticed, in 
accordance with this, that where the day observed 
by Christians is mentioned in the New Testament 
it is called simply “the first day of the week,” 
except in that passage of the Apocalypse where 
for the first time we find the term, afterwards 
general, “the Lord’s Day.”? 

We learn also from this view of the day of rest 
the full meaning of that weighty saying of Jesus: 
‘The Sabbath was made for man, and not man 
for the Sabbath.” Man, as originally created, 
needed no Sabbath law, for he had entered into 
the perpetual rest of the Sabbatism of his Creator. 
But when he fell from this high estate the Sabbath 
was made for him, not as a mere legal obligation, 
For this reason 
faithful men and women in Israel of old clung to 
it as the earnest of the great salvation which 
was to restore the lost paradise for which their 


but as a great spiritual privilege. 


hearts yearned, and with reference to which their 
ery was, “O that I had wings like a dove, then 
1 Acts xx. 7; 1 Cor. xvi. 2; Rev. i. 10. In the Peschito 


version the expression “Lord’s Day” occurs in 1 Cor. xi 
20. (Etheridge’s Translation, p. 272.) 


The Day of Rest. 


27 


ae ee 


would I fly away and be at rest”! So it 1s in 
regard to the Lord’s Day. Just as we honour and 
trust in the Saviour, so shall we regard the day 
which commemorates His entering into His rest. 
Just as we appreciate that rest which He gives us 
in part here, and as our hearts long for that rest 
which remains in the Father’s house, so shall we 
hold in loving remembrance the day which points 
to it, and which enables us to have some faint 
realization of it in the midst of sorrow and trouble. 
In a lower sense the Sabbath was made for man 
as a relief from the heavy curse of unremitting 
labour, and though the world will never gain much 
spiritually by a merely legal observance of the 
Sabbath, even this is of priceless value to the 
working man in a moral, social, and physical point 
of view. It is thus not merely an arbitrary en- 
actment, but a statement of an effect depending on 
an adequate cause, that the man or the nation 
honouring God’s day of rest will itself be honoured 
and prospered. 

The primitive Sabbath of Genesis and of. the 
Moral Law has thus a definite connection with 
human labour and with the physical well-being of 
man. “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread,” 
ig the doom of fallen humanity—a doom too fear- 
fully felt in the whole history of the world, and 
strange to say, apparently not less so in our times 

1 Psalm lv. 6, R.V. 


As we 
honour the 
Saviour 
we shall 
regard lis 
day. 


The 
Sabbath a 
relief from 
unremitting 
labour. 


The 
connection 
of the 
primitive 
Sabbath 
with labour 


28 


The 
Sabbath 
the only 
means of 
alleviating 
the life of 
labour. 


The law 
extended 
even to 

domestic 
animals, 


The phy- 

siological 

necessity 

for a 
eriodical 

mterruption 

of toil 

for man 

or beast 

attirmed. 


A nation 
without a 
Sabbath 
must pre- 
maturely 
decay. 


The Day of Rest. 


of mechanical invention and mastery over nature, 
than in ruder ages. How terribly would this 
doom have been aggravated had man been expelled 
from Eden to a life of unremitting toil. But the 
Sabbath stood between him and this fate, and so 
far as human experience has shown, was the only 
possible means of alleviating his life of labour. 
Hence Moses impresses on his nation of emancipated 
slaves the constant remembrance of this day, and 
enjoins on them the extension of its benefits to 
their own slaves and to strangers within their 
gates, even though not believers in Jehovah. 
Hence also the provisions of the law are extended 
even to domestic animals, which, though destitute 
of spiritual natures, have bodily organisms, which 
under ceaseless labour will be worn out prematurely 
and subjected to a living death while they survive. 
These lower animals have no share in the moral 
law directly, but it is immoral to deprive them of 
the little happiness of which they are capable, and 
to subject them to conditions inconsistent with 
their physical well-being. The physiological 
necessity for a periodical interruption of toil, 
whether for man or beast, is thus affirmed in the 
law, and it is verified by all that we have learned 
of the constitution of living things. It is con- 
firmed by the experience of all thoughtful men 
and of all nations. <A nation without a Sabbath 
must fall to a low ebb of civilisation and efficiency, 


The Day of Rest. 


ae 


RS SSS SaaS SS esses ssssanNGsnasuannssosshatsntsees-wieeeseeseese 


or its people must become prematurely old and 
worn out. It scarcely needs any special interven- 
tion of Divine justice to inflict on those who 
disregard the Sabbath the penalties denounced by 
the Hebrew prophets. Those who would take 
away the day of rest from the working man on 
any pretext, are not his true friends; and it is one 
of the hopeful signs of the times, that in recent 
discussions of this question the working men and 
those who might most truly be considered their 
representatives have shown themselves opposed to 
innovations, which however plausible and harm- 
less in appearance, might be the thin edge of the 
wedge which would break down this great privi- 
lege. It seems to be a result of physiological and 
social laws, as well as of moral laws, that the 
man who works six days and rests on the seventh, 
will do more and better work than the man who 
- works without interruption, because the Sabbath is 
a mental and physical restorative to wearied nature. 
Thus nations which are so unwise as to sacrifice 
the day of rest find that instead of promoting their 
wealth and happiness they have involved them- 
selves in hopeless slavery. 

The right understanding of the Sabbath also 
throws light on the true relation of the moral law 
to the Christian system. That specially Jewish 
law which related to the Temple service and the 
_ Aaronic priesthood, was, we are informed in the 


The inter- 
vention of 
Divine 
justice 
ardly 
needed to 
inflict the 
penalty for 
disregard of 
the Sabbath, 


The man 
who works 
six days 
and rests 
on the 
seventh 
will do 
more and 
better work 
than the 
man who 
works un- 
ceasingly. 


-The 


relation of 
the moral 
law to the 
Christian 
system, 


30 


The 
Decalogue 
the rule of 
life, 


The 
Decalogue 
does not 
pass away 
till men 
will have 
entered 
into an 
eternal 
Sabbatism. 


The Lord’s 
Day points 
forward to 
the second 
coming of 

Christ. 


The Day of Rest. 


New Testament, of temporary obligation only, and 
was annulled in Christ. But the Decalogue stil 
remains as the rule of life. It is, however, exalted 
in the teaching of Christ by His directing special 
attention to the summing up of the whole in the 
two great commandments, and also by His adding 
to the second that new sanction, which He calls a 
new commandment, “Love one another, as I have 
loved you.” So in like manner the old Sabbath 
becomes the Lord’s Day, with the higher sanction 
of being the memorial of the finished work of re- 
demption, as well as of creation. So spiritualized by 
the teaching of Christ, and the example of the 
primitive Church, the Decalogue does not pass 
away until the time shall come when it will be no 
more needed, because men shall themselves be like 
the Lord, when they shall see Him as He is, and 
because they too, like Him, will have entered into 
an eternal Sabbatism. 

Thus the Lord’s Day also in its true significance 
points forward to the second coming of Christ, and 
to the New Jerusalem. Christ our Forerunner 
has entered into His Sabbatism, and that rest 
remains for us—to be fully enjoyed in that blessed 
time of the restitution of all things which He is to 
inaugurate, and when Eden will bloom again, or 
rather will be replaced by the city of God, which 
comes down from heaven. Then God’s Sabbatism 
will be fully restored to man never again to be 


The Day of Rest. 


—-_ 


broken, and the weekly day of rest will be swal- 
lowed up in that eternal Sakbatism, of which it 
is but a feeble and transitory type. Then the day 
of the Lord will be revealed in its full force and 
meaning. 

After what has been said above, it is scarcely 
necessary to ask the question, What is the rela- 
tive religious sacredness or obligation of the Lord’s 
Day and the ancient Sabbath? We should, how- 
ever, regard the former in the full light of the new 
dispensation. In this, love to God as the reconciled 
Father in Jesus Christ, takes the place of legal 
obligation, and the love of our brother is raised to 
a higher plane by the new commandment of Christ 
We 
are therefore not surprised to find that in the New 
Testament the Lord’s Day does not appear as a 
stringent law to be enforced by pains and penalties, 
but as. a loving tribute to our best friend, as a com- 
memoration of the completion of that work of self- 
sacrifice which has secured for us the highest bless- 
ings in this world and that which is to come, as a 


—‘“ Love one another, as I have loved you.” 


means of attaining even here to that blessed rest 
which He has prepared for us, and as a presage of 
a still happier rest in the future. Such a day can- 
not be enforced on the unwilling or inappreciative. 
God may invite them to His feast; but they will 
make excuse and man cannot force them to partake 
of it. But is it on this account less sacred than the 


31 


The day of 
rest will 
then be 
swallowed 
up in the 
eternal 
Sabbatism. 


The relative 
obligation 
of the 
Lord’s Day 
and the 
ancient 
Sabbath. 


Why the 
New Testa- 
ment does 
not enforce 
the Lord’s 
Day by 
pains and 
penalties. 


32 The Day of Rest. 


EEE NE EN rere ee een nee 


a Lord’s old Sabbath? Is it not rather incomparably more 


sacred than holy? And should it not be one of the highest 


Sabbath. aims of Christians to guard it for its highest uses, 
What and, while entering themselves into that happy 


eae as Sabbatism of which it is the emblem, to induce all 
others to accept Christ’s gracious invitation to enter - 
into this rest, and to respect the day which is at 
once its sign and its means of attamment. It is 
to be feared that inattention to the sacredness of 
the Lord’s Day, and inability to enter into the im- 
ward peace and rest which it represents, are beset- 
ting evils of our time, and hindrances to our attain- 
We are | ing to the highest type of Christianity. We are 
enter into called on by our Redeemer to enter into rest; but 
like Israel of old we may fall short of it, and be 
doomed, because of want of faith, to wander long 
in the desert of disappointed hopes. 
“Tet us therefore give diligence to enter into 
that rest, that no man fall after the same example 
of unbelief.” 


Nore.—The writer had not observed, till the foregoing pages 
were in type, the recent controversy as to the origin of the 
week, arising from an article by the Bishop of Carlisle in the 
Contemporary Review. No scientific importance can be attached 
to the hypothesis that the week has a merely astronomical origin. 
The naming of the days after planets or planetary gods was 
probably an afterthought, not likely to have suggested itself to 
primitive man, especially as some of the planets are too in- 
conspicuous to have early attracted attention. The week does 
nob actually correspond with quarters of a lunation ; and these 
are not definite marks of time, like complete revolutions. The 
week must thus depend, as stated in Genesis, on some different 
basis from the other divisions of time. These, in so far as days, 
months, and years are concerned, arise from definite astro- 
nomical revolutions, and are, no doubt, of priceless value to 
man, as the basis of ‘‘times and seasons,” without which 
civilisation would have been impossible. But the week and the 
Sabbath rest on the revealed stages of the creative work, and 
hence occupy a special place in relation to God’s providential 
procedure, and mark a different connection between man and 
his Creator from that indicated by the suitableness of merely 
astronomical arrangement. For this reason the week becomes 
the basis of other sevenfold divisions of time having a religious 
significance, as, for example, the Sabbatical year. In the words 
of Mr. H. Grattan Guinness, ‘‘the entire meaning of the 
Sabbath depends on its connection with the rest of the Creator 
in a perfected creation, before the entrance of moral evil. 


i? 


athe) it wider 


<-e 


~~ 


ae ey 
x 


’ a, 


PMID ROL otras 


CHRISTIANITY 


ANCIENT PAGANISM | 


BY 


J. MURRAY MITCHELL, M.A., LL.D, 


Argument of the Fract, 


————— 


THE comparative study of religions has, in our day, become 
exceedingly popular; but erroneous ideas are often ex- 
pressed as to the position which Christianity holds among 
the various systems of belief. 

The subject is of very wide extent. The first thing 
necessary for its proper discussion is a large induction of 
fully ascertained facts. 

Happily, great progress has recently been made in the 
investigation of various ancient religions. 

The Tract deals with ancient religions that were once 
widely influential, du¢ ave now extinct. In the body of the 
Tract the systems that prevailed among civilized nations 
are discussed ; and, in the note at the end, a brief state- 
ment is given of the beliefs and rites of tlie chief uncivi- 
lized races of ancient Europe. 

The unique position held among ancient forms of belief 
by the Jewish religion is pointed out; as well as the re- 
lation of that faith to Christianity. 

It is shown that the latter came in “the fulness of the 
time.” 

Reference is also made to the connection between true 
religion and civilization. 


CHRISPIANTL ITY 


AND 
a Sef Pe tar 
L 
BRO eg UCH attention is paid in our days to the the com 
HAW, t comparative study of Religions. But study of 
-4 bi} although now prosecuted with greater not ® new 
zeal than heretofore, it is by no means 
a new subject of inquiry. 

_ The Hebrew prophets frequently drew a con- The 
trast between the God of Israel and the idols of prophets | 
the nations; and their cry of exultation was, te God 

and the 


‘Their rock is not as our rock; even our enemies 
themselves being judges.” 

In like manner the apologists of the early 
Christian centuries made comparisons between the 
teaching of Christ and that of Greek and Roman 
books ; and they elaborately placed the pure rites 
enjomed by the Gospel side by side with the 
polluted observances of Heathenism. 

Even so, soon after Mohammadanism arose, the 


idols of the 
nations, 


The early 
Christian 
apologists 
contrasted 
the teaching 
and rites 
of the 
Gospel 
and of 
Heathen- 
ism. 


4 Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


The Koran Koran was examined and refuted by Chistian 
examined re oe e ° 7 

and refuted living in Asia. Nor was Europe content to com- 
by Asiatic 


Christians. hat Islam only with the sword; the book that 
professed to be a new revelation from heaven was 
by-and-by- translated into Latin and carefully 
eriticized. 

The desire In like manner, when Europe became aware of 


of the 


ye the existence of writings which were regarded as 
to become sacred by the nations of the farther East, an 
with the , earmest desire was felt to become acquainted with 
of the East. their contents. The feeling appears to have been 
strongest on the part of the opponents of Chris- 
tianity ; and the reason of this is not far to seek. 
Unbelievers expected that the books of the Oriental 
nations would prove great repositories of wisdom ; 
for it was a tradition that the philosophers of 
Greece had drawn much from Eastern sources. 
The hope It was the hope of Voltaire and the French 


cherished 


that they  Hincyclopedists that the sacred books of Persia, © 


eal India, and China, would be found equal, if not 
and es superior, in religious teaching, to the Jewish and 
Scriptures. Christian Scriptures. Hence, when Roberto de’ 
Nobili, the nephew of Cardinal Bellarmine, pro- 
duced the work which he sought to palm off on 
the Brahmans of Madura as a genuine Veda 
that had been overlooked, Voltaire was com- 
pletely taken in, and caused the wonderful book 
to be twice republished in Europe.” Here is an 


1 By Al Kindi and others, 2 At Yverdun and Paris. 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


Oriental work, said the sage of Ferney, very like 
the Bible, and at least as good. It is a singular 
story, though seldom remembered now. 

But ere long a genuine Oriental work was con- 
veyed to Europe. Anquetil du Perron returned 
from his travels in India, bearing as spolia opima 
the writings usually ascribed to the famous Zoro- 
aster. All learned Europe waited in mute ex- 
pectation for the translation which he at once set 
about preparing. When, in 1771, the oracle, which 
had been silent for ages, at length became vocal, 
the disappointment was infinite; and the general 
sentiment found expression in the sarcasm of 
Jones—afterwards the learned Sir William— 
“Hither Zoroaster never wrote these books, or he 
was not possessed of common sense.” The cen- 
sure was far too sweeping; but, no doubt, the 
Zoroastrian books were amazingly different from 
what either Christians or unbelievers had expected 
they would prove to be. 

In recent years, various causes have combined 
to further the comparative study of Religions. 
For more than forty years, in fact, ever since 
Grotefend grappled with the cuneiform, and 
Champollion with the hieroglyphic, inscriptions, 
steady progress has been made in their interpret- 
ation; and a flood of light has been poured on 
the history of at least seven ancient nations. 
Oriental scholars have, in the meantime, been 


The 
writings 
ascribed te 
Zoroaster 
translated. 


The dis- 
appointment 
felt with 
them. 


The recent 
furtherance 
of the come 
parative 
study of 
religions. 


The 
subject 
becoming 
popular, 


The 
Christian 
need not 
take alarm. 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


laboriously investigating the sacred writings of 
China, India, and Persia; and the results of their 
inquiries have been largely communicated to 
the public in translations.1 The subject may be 
said to be becoming popular; for it is presented 
in every kind of publication, from the stately 
review down to the halfpenny newspaper. All 
this is well, when the study of comparative 
theology is presented in a truth-loving and candid 
spirit. The intelligent Christian will by no means 
take alarm at the result of discovery in this field 
of investigation, any more than in the field of 
science. Every new fact he will heartily welcome, 
though it behoves him—as it behoves all—to scru- 


 tinize well the conclusions which may be drawn 


Too hasty 
generaliza- 
tion a fault 
of the age. 


The im- 
portance of 
religion, 


from facts, whether real or imaginary. One great 
fault of the age is rash deduction, too hasty 
generalization. Lord Eldon’s favourite maxim 
would stand us in good stead in other provinces 
as well as that of Law—Sat cito si sat bene.? 

But we must not forget to say that the study of 
Religions is deeply interesting for another reason. 
“A man’s religion,” said Thomas Carlyle, “is the 
most important thing about him.” So we may 
also say of acommunity. Therefore, every iover 
of his kind must watch the movements of the 


1 In the Sacred Books of the East, Tribner’s Oriental Series, 
and many separate publications, 


2 Soon enough, if well enough.” 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


religious principle in man with keen interest and 
profound sympathy. How have our brethren m 
various lands and ages dealt with the duties of life, 
the trials of life, the perplexing problems of life ? 
What have been their thoughts of God, and of sin, 
of a world to come? Questions like these are of 
engrossing interest to every philanthropist. Nor 
will he be repelled from the inquiry if he find that 
it is in connexion with religion more than any 
other subject that we have to deal with the 
morbid anatomy of human nature, and that the 
saddest aberrations of the mind have been when 
engaged in the prosecution of the highest of all 
questions. 

It is only fair that we should mention at the 
outset what is the point of view from which we 
examine the field of inquiry. We believe the 
Christian Revelation to be unique; cui nihil viget 
simile aut secundum. But that belief by no means 
involves the consequence that the holder of it 
should be unfair to other systems of religion. 
Nay, the very strength of his conviction cf the 
supreme glory of the Gospel, and the assurance 
that all competition between it and other systems 
is out of the question, ought to contribute to calm- 
ness and impartiality in his judgment of other 
creeds. In truth, he must be a very narrow- 


1 “*To whom there exists nothing similar or second.” So 
Horace, speaking of Jupiter as supreme, 


Moral and 
religious 
problems 
all 


The 
Christian 
revelation 
unique. 


The 
Christian 
can be 
calm and 
impartial 
in his 
judgment 
of other 
creeds. 


8 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


Fragments 
of primeval 
revelation 
may have 
been borne 
down the 
stream of 
time. 


Reason and 
conscience 
gifts of 
heaven. 


The 
relation of 
the Hebrew 


idolatries 
around 
them. 


minded Christian who looks on Pagan systems as 
merely masses of unrelieved falsehood. Why 
should they be so? The Christian believes, and 
many who do not call themselves Christians believe 


‘with him, that there was given to man a primeval 


Revelation ; is it probable that no fragments of it 
have been borne down the stream of time? Again, 
there is such a thing as the light of nature. 
Reason and conscience are in man—most precious 
gifts of heaven. They often speak, alas! only in 
whispers; but to the listening ear those whispers 
are audible. The Christian then should expect to 
find, and he should rejoice to find, that heathen 
systems are not, of necessity, all “dark as Erebus.” 

It is instructive to note how differently, at dif- 
ferent times, the point now before us has been 
regarded. We could not expect that the Hebrew 
prophets, in vindicating the claims of Jehovah 
against Baal or Chemosh, would carefully search 
for redeeming points in the idolatries around them ; 
fidelity to God and humankind demanded that they 
should dwell on their baseness and corruption, and 
denounce them with righteous, vehement indig- 
nation. Parleying—temporizing—philosophizing 
would have been as ridiculous as ruinous. Your 
man of science can prove that there is heat in ice; 
but we do not, on that account, enter an ice-house 
to warm ourselves. 

But it is remarkable how soon a calm and philo- 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


sophic estimate of Heathenism was actually formed 
The statements on this subject by the first and 
greatest of all missionaries to the heathen are 
broad, wise, and comprehensive. Even those who 
question the inspiration of St. Paul must admire 
his calmness and impartiality in dealing with a 
subject on which surely, if on any, his feelings 
might have been expected to carry him away. The 
teaching of the Apostle as to Heathenism may be 
summed up under five beads. He declares that 


ist. The invisible things of God, even His eternal 
power and Godhead, are clearly seen, being 
understood from the things that are made. 


Qnd. The Gentiles, when they knew God, glori- 
fied Him not as God, neither were thankful. 
They did not like to retain God in their 
knowledge. 


3rd They therefore became vain in their ima- 
ginations (reasonings), and their foolish 
heart (2.e. understanding) was darkened. 
Professing themselves to be wise they be- 
came fools. 


4th. They then changed the glory of the incor- 
ruptible God into an image made like to 
corruptible man, and to birds, and quadru- 
peds, and reptiles,—worshipping and serving 
the creature rather than the Creator. 


- The 


formation 
of a calm 
and philo- 
sophic 
estimate of 
Heathenism, 


The teach- 
ing of the 
Apostle 
Paul about 
Heathenism. 


10 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


DS rp neeeneenesceeeeant, 


The 
Apostle’s 
statement 
a just 
historical 
account, 


Exceptional 
cases 
recognised 
by him. 


8t. Paul’s 
spirit shared 
by man 
Christian 
writers. 


5th. All moral corruption followed. They were 
given over to a reprobate mind, to do those 
things that are not fitting. 


We believe the Apostle’s statement to be a just 
historical aecount of the origin and progress of 
Pagan idolatry—a key which, better than any 
other we know, unlocks the secret of Heathenism, 
and best explains its strange and manifold contra- 
dictions. At the same time, while true as a whole, 
true of the mass, we do not suppose that St. Paul 
intended it to apply to every individual Pagan. 
He asserts, indeed, that there are “Gentiles who 
have no [written] law, but show the work of the 
law written on their hearts.” Let us hope that 
those who “seek after God, if haply they might 
feel after Him and find Him,” have throughout 
the ages been no inconsiderablo number. And let 
us rest assured that the eye of the all-compassionate 
God rested graciously on all such. Only let us 
remember that these exceptional men, if they found 
God, did so, not because of their sad environment, 
but in spite of it. 

When we come later down we find not a few 
Christian writers dealing with Paganism in the 
spirit of St. Paul. The earlier Fathers acknow- 

1 Compare the striking language of Cicero with that of the 
Apostle. Multi de diis prava sentiunt ; id enim vitioso more 


efict solet.—Tusc. i. 13. (Many have wrong notions of the 
gods ; for that usually springs from vicious morals. ) 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


il 


ledged that there were pure elements in Heathenism; 
and these they attributed to the truth diffused 
among men by Christ, the Word! It was, how- 
ever, the philosophy rather than the religion of 
Greece in which the fathers found “a trace of 
wisdom and an impulse from God.”? Yet certam 
of the Fathers, especially the vehement Tertullian, 
gave no quarter, either to the one or the other. 

In modern days, there long existed a disposition 
to paint non-Christian systems in the darkest 
colours. Thus, Mohammad was regarded as having 
been, from the outset, a deep designing impostor, 
animated by mere selfishness and ambition, and 
dexterously trimming his sails as the wind chanced 
to blow from a Pagan, a Jewish, or a Christian 
quarter. We have since learned that the problem 
of his mixed character and lamentable fall is not 
to be solved so easily. 

This mode of dealing with Gentile religions 
continued at least as far down as the days of 
Milton. When we remember the lavish use which 
the great poet makes of Greek and Roman mytho- 
logy, we are hardly prepared for the summary con- 
demnation of Pagan faith which he pronounces both 
in his earlier and later writings. Thus, speaking 
of the god Osiris as terrified at the birth of Christ, 
he summarily dismisses him to his proper place: 

1 The Adyos oxepparués. 
3 SS Clement of Alexandria (Clark’s Edition), vol. t p, 42 


The pure 
elements in 
Heatheni=sm 


to the 
trath 
diffused by 
Christ— 
the Word 


The modern 


12 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


Pagan 
systems 
traced by 
Milton 

to the 
influence of 
fallen 
angels, 


A great 
reaction has 
taken place 
of late years 
an 
opposite 
extreme, 


Evil is 
not good 
in the 
making. 


Nor is Osiris seen 
In Memphian grove or green, 
Trampling the unshowered grass with lowings loud ; 
Nor can he be at rest 
Within bis sacred chest,— 
Nought but profoundest hell can be his shroud. 

Even so, he traces the origin of Pagan systems 
to the influence of the fallen angels, and briefly 
stigmatizes them all as 

Gay religions full of pomp and gold, 
And devils to adore for deities. 

Gradually, however, and especially of late years, 
a great reaction has taken place. The pendulum, 
which swung too far in one direction, now threatens 
to reach the opposite extreme. It is high time to 
call for a reaction from the reaction. 

The principle that “there is some soul of good- 
ness in things evil,” is applied to cases which 
assuredly were not in Shakespeare’s eye when he 
put the words into the mouth of King Henry. 

We are now told that evil is “good in the 
making.” Evil, indeed, is often compelled, in the 
overruling providence of God, to bring about results 
very different from what the evil-doer sought to 
reach; but surely evil is, in itself, intrinsically, eter- 
nally hateful. Now, this tendency to find some good 
in all things leads many far astray in the study of 
Heathen systems. What is black as midnight is 
often declared to be only a somewhat deeper shade 


of grey. 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


We frequently hear of a gradual development of 
spiritual truth parallel to the progress of civilization. 


All, or at least most, of the great Religions of the & 


world are held to have contributed their share to 
the advancement of true religion. Thus, Christ- 
ianity is only the last in the series—the last as yet, 
though possibly destined to give place, ere long, to a 
system still more exalted and refined. 

The hypothesis of Evolution has taken such 
possession of the mind of multitudes, that they 
push it—as if it were an established truth—into 
regions in which the principle, whether true or false, 
can bear no legitimate sway. It is frequently 
maintained that all human things advance by calm, 
orderly steps, with slight, if any, evidence of a pause, 
none of retrogression. But history denies this. 
is of course true that, taken in its wide extent, 
humanity moves on, as Wordsworth says, 


’ With an ascent and progress in the main. 


But if many races have risen, some have remained 
stationary, and others have sunk. ‘True, in art 
and science there has been a great advance on the 
whole. But we must not forget that many of the 
highest attamments of the human mind were made 
long ages ago. Thus Egypt and the East! handed 
over their sculpture, architecture, and other arts to 
Greece; and there they rapidly attained an ex- 


1 Egypt. Phoenicia, Lydia, Assyria. 


It 


13 


et 


Christiani 
is regarde 
as & 
product of a 
adu 
develop- 
ment. 


History 
denies that 
all human 
things 
advance by 
calm and 
orderly steps 
without 
pause, 


Humanity 
advances in 
the main, 


Many of 
the highest 
attainments 
made ages 
ago. 


14 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


The 
intellect, 
imagination 
and taste o 
the Greeks. 


The 
continuous 
progress of 
art and 
science 
purely 
lmaginarye 


higher 
intellectual 
endow= 
ments, 


cellence which has not been equalled in the lapse 
of two thousand years. Again, the poetry of 
Homer, the oratory of Demosthenes, the specu- 
lative power of Aristotle and Plato; are not these 
still unequalled, or at all events unsurpassed? In 
intellect, imagination, taste, the Greeks, we venture 
to say, have excelled all other races. They were in- 
ventive too; but their originality was controlled 
by an exquisite sense of fitness, proportion, har- 
mony. 

The continuous progress of art and science, then, 
is purely imaginary. Knowledge has increased; 
intellect has not. It was of yore that genius plumed 
her pinions for her highest flight; and succeeding 
generations have gazed enviously upward, as they 
have seen her 


Sailing with supreme dominion, 
Through the azure deep of air. 


In other words, Almighty God was pleased to im- 
part to the ancient Greeks more of inventive and 
reasoning power, and a more acute perception 
of the beautiful, than to any other race. Nor does 
it appear probable that any future generation will 
surpass, or even equal them in the higher intel- 


| lectual endowments. 


These considerations certainly do not predispose 
us to expect that we shall ever be able to trace a 
regular, continuous development of religion among 
the nations. We need not be surprised if we find, 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


16 


in many cases, not improvement, but deterioration. 
And there is not the slightest ground for the as- 
sertion that Christianity is only the latest addition 
to an edifice that has been slowly rising throughout 
the ages, and to which most, or at least many, 
nations have contributed. On the contrary, it can 
be demonstrated that, when we distinguish between 
religion and mere intellectual culture,’ 


1st. There isno truth in any other religion which 
does not shine forth with brighter light in 
Christianity ; 

2nd. Christianity has borrowed no truth from 
any Pagan creed; and 


8rd. Every system except Christianity mingles 
much error along with the truth that it 


maintains.” 
We ought, perhaps, to state here that we regard 


1 It will be seen as we proceed that we do not overlook the 
importance, or question the value, of intellectual culture. It 
is an essential element in modern civilization. 

Nor let it be forgotten that the Socratic ethics—especially as 
elaborated in the later Stoic schools—powerfully affected the 
Roman jurists, and through them the legislation of modern 
Europe. , 


2 Whether any portion of the Jewish ritual was drawn from 
Egypt is a different question. The symbolism that is seen in 
the cherub has parallels among various nations—Egyptians, 
Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians, etc. That it was borrowed is 
not proved. The so-called Egyptian ark, which was a boat, had 
a very different use from the Jewish ark, 


Things de- 
monstrably 
true of 


Christianity, 


Intellectual 
culture an 
essential 
element of 
modern 
civilization. 
Socratic 
Ethics, 


Derivation 
of Jewish 
ritual, 


16 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


rr ee ele 


religion. 


The Tract 
deals with 
extinct 
forms of 
Ancient 
Paganism, 


Extinct 
Pagan 
religions, 


Judaism and Christianity—the former as contained 
in the Old Testament, the latter in the New—as 
one religion, —one in the sense in which the rosebud 
and the expanded rose, the “bright consummate 
flower,” are only one. Or we may say, they are 
related to each other, as dawn is to sunrise. 

Our Tract deals with “Christianity and Ancient 
Paganism.” By Ancient Paganism we here mean 
those forms of Paganism which existed in ancient 
days, but are now extinct. There are other systems 
which existed in antiquity and have survived to 
the present, time. The most noted of these are 
Zoroastrianism, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Con- 
fucianism. We do not treat of these.’ 

It were well, if it were only possible, to discuss 
the ancient religions in a strictly chronological 
order. We could then better ascertain how much 
or how little the later systems had been indebted 
to the earlier. We shall keep this in mind; but it 
is difficult, in some cases, to state the historic 
sequence. 


II. 


Tux great religions of Pagan antiquity that are 
now extinct were the following: the Egyptian; the 
Babylonian and Assyrian; the Phoenician; the 
Lydian and Phrygian ; the Hittite ; the Greek, and 


1Each of these systems forms the subject of a separate 
Tract in the Present Day Series (Nos, 25, 33, 46, 18). 


ee 


Chirstianity ana Ancient Paganism. 


the Roman. The religions of the Syrians, Moabites, 


and other races in and around Palestine may be 
considered along with that of the Phoenicians. 
Those of the chief uncivilized races of ancient 
Kurope—Celtic, Teutonic, and Sclavonian—must 
be treated, if at all, very briefly, seeing that our 
knowledge of them is still very scanty. 


1. Tue Eayrrian System. 


WE begin with the Egyptian system. Civilization 
seems to have commenced in the region of Meso- 
potamia; but the earliest monuments of it that 
_ have come down to us are connected with the valley 
of the Nile. 

The religion of Egypt presents very perplexing 
problems. One of these is its extraordinary incon- 
sistency. In some writings we meet with ideas of 
deity which are excessively refined—refined till 
they have become impalpable and colourless; in 
others, we find polytheism in as debased a form as 
that m which it appears among the lowest savages. 
More remarkable still, we find these two things not 
only existing at the same time, but expressed in 
the same writings. Hence, vehement debate among 
Kgyptologists. Most of them hold that the refined 
conceptions came first, and that the latter form was 
a corruption gradually introduced. It is at least 
certain, as one of the strongest supporters} of the 

1 M. Maspero. 
Q 


17 


The 
religion 

of uncivile 
ized races. 


The earliest 
monuments 


i=) 
La 


civilization 
connected 
with the 
valley of 
the Nile. 


Inconsis- 
tency of 
the religion 
of Egypt. 


Vehement 
debate 
amon 


Egyptolo~ 
eke 


1& 


Monothe- 
istic ideas 


The 
conceptions 
in Egyptian 
monuments 
vague, 
confused, 
conflicting. 


Early 
appearance 
of Sun- 


worship, 


Abundance 
of symbol- 
ism. 


to 
the priests, 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


opposite theory admits, that monotheistic ideas 
made their way very early into Egypt. It appears 
to us that the balance of the evidence is in favour 
of their having been there first. 

But it is not improbable that the population of 
Egypt consisted of two races originally distinct, 
one mentally lower, probably African, and another 
much higher, probably Asiatic Shemites. In that 
case the religion was composite and inconsistent 
from the beginning. t 

The refined system has by most been called mono- 
theism; by others, henotheism. Others still call — 
it pantheism. ‘The dispute need not surprise us; 
for the conceptions expressed in Egyptian monu- 
ments are vague, confused, conflicting; nor does 
it appear probable that any deeper study will ever 
prove them to be mutually consistent. 

Sun-worship unquestionably appearsearly. This, 
and the reverence of metaphysical deities, are 
mingled together even on the oldest monuments. 

Above all systems that ever were, the Egyp- 
tian abounded in symbolism. Every idea, every 
shadow of an idea, had to be represented—made 
visible. The faith had then to pay the penalty of — 
this mental weakness. The sign, ere long, concealed 
the thing signified—it became its substitute. 

Many writers contend that the higher classes— 
or at all events, the priests—were acquainted with 
a truly spiritual system, which they carefully con- 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


19 


cealed from the common people. ‘This is possible. 
Populus vult decipi et decipiatur ' is a hideous maxim 
which, doubtless, has had sway in various lands. 
But there is no evidence of the intentional conceal- 
ment of higher truths on the part of the Egyptian 
priests. . It was no function of theirs to educate 


the people ; and probably the masses could not rise i 


above the lowest form of brute-worship. Nor did 
the priests and the higher classes themselves really 
rise above it; they only succeeded, in a way difficult 
for us to conceive, in mingling higher and lower 
conceptions, and so identifying the divinity with 
the brute. The religion changed ; it changed more 
than is at first apparent, for the Egyptians were very 
conservative of ancient forms; but the degrading 
brute-worship endured as long as any part of the 
religion. The same animals, however, were not 
adored over the whole of the country; some which 
were worshipped at one place were pursued and 
killed at another ; and hence violent disputes often 
ending in bloodshed. But we need not pursue the 
subject farther. We merely add that even the 
Grecks and the Romans were shocked by the 
Egyptian worship. Plutarch gravely reprobates its 
“degrading rites;” and the poet Juvenal levels 
~ against it his sharpest shafts of ridicule.? 


1 The people wish to be deceived, and let them be so, 


2 Who has not heard, where Egypt’s realms are named, 
What monster gods her frantic sons have framed ? ete, 


Not the 
function of 
he 


Egyptian 
priests to 
educate the 
people. 


The priests 

mingled 

higher and 

lower 

conceptions 
d 


an 
identified 
the divinity 
with the 
brute. 


Greeks and 
Romans 
shocked by 
Egyptian 
worship. 


20 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


The 
Egyptian 
religion 
grew more 
and more 
mystical 
and 
magical 


Good moral 
precepts 
here and 
there in 
books and 
monuments. 


The 
morality 
stationa 

at the a 
elementary 
stage, and 
independent 
of religion. 


More use 
of priestly 
power. 


In the course of its long existence the religion 
became more and more mystical, and more and 
more magical. Thus, in the “ Book of the Dead,” 
the most remarkable document which has come down 
from the ancient days of Egypt, comparatively 
little is said of duties, but much of spells and in- 
cantations. 

There are, no doubt, as was to be expected, 
many good moral precepts scattered here and 
there, in books and on monuments. But “the 
morality remained stationary at the elementary 
stage; and its moral maxims never rise to the 
rank of principles.”+ ‘The morality must have 
been totally independent of the religion.”* No 
divorce could have been more unhappy; and we 
need not wonder that the naked ethical maxim 
often remained impotent, while “a thousand 
superstitions took the place of the attempt to lead 
an honest life.” ? 

The priests, in the original constitution of 
Egypt, had comparatively little power. That 
power, however, steadily increased, until every- 
‘Ling in life was ruled by them. In Upper Egypt 
they, by-and-by, usurped full regal authority ; 
and they retained it long. 


1 So Prof. Tiele. 


2 Poole, in Encycl. Britan. The same writer says that we 
have, in the ‘‘ Book of the Dead,” ‘‘a glimpse of truth seen 
through thick mists peopled with phantoms of basest super 
stition.” 


OO 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


Women in Egypt were allowed much liberty ; 


but evidently it often ran into license. This was of 


especially the case during the pilgrimage to 
Bubastis, which Herodotus tells us was by far the 
most popular and magnificent of Egyptian festivals. 
Evil ran riot during this great celebration.1 Truly, 
religion and morality were separable and separate 
Monogamy was the rule, but 
Brother and _ sister 


in ancient Egypt. 
concubinage was frequent. 
often intermarried. 

And now, is there any element of truth which 
Egypt contributed towards the establishment of 
the final form of religion? We have seen that 
this is frequently maintained ; but the belief seems 
to have no foundation. If, as Diodorus held, the 
Greeks derived their religion from Egypt, they 
entirely changed it; they humanized the gods, 
instead of keeping them brutal. The idea that 
Moses, who was skilled in all the wisdom of the 
Egyptians, drew any of his lofty conceptions of 
Jehovah from Egyptian sources, was often loudly 
asserted in former days; butit seems now generally 
abandoned even by critics of the negative school, 
like Kuenen. Wellhausen, too, distinctly affirms 
that “Moses gave no new idea of God to his 
people. The question whence he derived it could 
not possibly be worse answered than by a reference 


1 Tiele, Egyptian Religion, p. 192, 


21 


Liberty of 


Egypt 
eaneibuted 
no element 
of truth 

to the es- 
tablishment 
of the final 
form of 
religion, 


The idea 
that Moses 
drew any 
of his lofty 
conceptions 
of Jehovah 
from 
Egyptian 
sources 
abandoned 
even by 
negative 
critics. 


22 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


Wellhausen to his relations with the priestly caste and their 


maintains 
that 


J ehovah has 


nothing 

in common 
with the 
deities of 


Egypt. 


The 
worship of 
Osiris and 
Ra formed 
the basis 
of the 
Egyptian 
religion, 


wisdom.” He maintains that Jehovah has 
nothing in common with the deities of Egypt. Of 
course, we do not forget that the multitude who 
had long been familiar with the brute worship 
around them, began to adore the golden calf; but 
we know that the degrading rite was suppressed 
with a sternness of indignation which must have 
profoundly impressed the whole of that generation 
and many succeeding ones. 

The religion, as has been said, sustained great 
changes.! In the oldest monuments Osiris and Ra 
are mentioned ; their worship formed the basis of 
the religion. Each is a divine being revealing 
himself in the sun.2 They are often confounded 
with each other. Afterwards, eight deities were 
classed in the first order; twelve in the second; and 
four in the third. The highest of the first order 
was Amn orAmun (usually said to mean concealed). 
He has properly the form of man; he sits with 
crown and sceptre on a throne, and holds in his 
hand a kind of cross, which is the symbol of Jif. 


1 De Rougé and not a few others trace the high spiritual 
conceptions of God to primeval Revelation ; and they point to 
evidences of a gradual corruption of these. Tiele admits that 
the most ancient system was the simplest and purest. And yeb 
he calls the corruption of this ‘‘a retrogression to the earlier 
stand-point.” He thus holds that purity first grew out of 
impurity, and then impurity out of purity. The explanation 
ia forced. De Rougé’s is far more simple and consistent. 


2 Tiele, p. 44. 


i a i 


Jhristianity and Ancient Paganism. 


23 


Ife was often united with Ra, and became Amun- 
Ra—the hidden one who is revealed in the sun. 
Most of the deities had animals’ heads, which were 
probably symbols of qualities. 

By the time of Herodotus Osiris had become 
the chief deity. Isis was his mother, sister, and 
wife. Her worship steadily increased. The myth 
of Osiris was the mother-myth in Egypt. He was 
said to have been killed and buried, his body 
having been cut in pieces, which were scattered. 
He revived, and became the judge of the dead. 
The future life greatly occupied the mind of the 


Egyptians. As time went on, the myth of Osiris 


Osiris the 
chief deity 
in the 
time of 
Herodotus. 


The myth 
of Osiris 
the mother. 
myth in 
Egypt. 


The future 
life greatly 
occupied 
the 
Egyptian 


became more terrible; and the views entertained mind 


of a future existence more and more gloomy. In 
the “ Book of the Dead” the adventures of the 
departed soul came to be described with appalling 
minuteness of detail. It is important to note that 
there was no idea of God as forgiving sn. The 
wicked soul was devoured by serpents, cast mto 
flames, or otherwise destroyed. The good man 
himself had to encounter sore trials in the other 
world. Snares lay in his path; monsters assailed 
him. His safety lay in grasping the sacred spear, 
and repeating magical words from the sacred 
books. Thus, at last he reached the happy fields, 
in which he could labour as on earth, but reap 
harvests far more abundant than he had done 
before. 


The 
departed 
soul in the 
‘Book of 
the Dead.’ 


24 


The 
principle 
of moral 
retribution 
accepted, 


No trace 

of merci=- 
fulness in 
the sense 
of forgiving 
sin in the 
Eeyptian 
conception 
ot the 
Divine. 


The usual 
explanation 
of the 
impression 
of the 
future 
world on the 
Egyptian 
mind. 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


In estimating the character of the Egyptian 
system, the doctrine of a future life must, by no 
means, be left out of account. The principle of 
moral retribution was accepted; and if Greece 
really borrowed it from Egypt, she did not re- 
tain so firm a hold of it. But we would gladly 
know how the belief affected men during life, 
and in the prospect of death. The Egyptian 
deities were strictly, sternly just. What then, as 
he faced the regions of Amenti—the other world 
—were the thoughts of a man who had, on the 
whole, sought to live virtuously, but who, like 
all of us, had “bitter thoughts of conscience 
born?”? We remember the triumphant language 
of the prophet Micah—‘ Who is a God like unto 
Thee, that pardoneth iniquity ?”? and even, in the 
earliest days of Israel, the mercy of Jehovah was 
declared in equally emphatic terms with His 
righteousness! Now, of mercifulness, in the 
sense of forgiving sin, there is no trace whatever 
in the Egyptian conception of the divine. Surely 
a most marked deficiency. 

The strong impression which the future world 
made on the Egyptian mind is very noteworthy. 
Whence could it spring? The usual explanation 
is that it was “nothing but a mystic representa- 
tion, arising out of sun-worship.”* The sun sank 


1 See Exodus xxxiv. 6, 7.] 2 Tiele, p. 70. 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


in the west and disappeared; he died. Yet he 
was not destroyed; he moved across the’ dark 
under-world, and soon, with undiminished bright- 
ness, “flamed in the forehead of the morning 
sky.”1 So every good man would triumph over 
death. Such is the explanation; but it seems to 
halt. For though day succeeds night, night again 
succeeds day; and if the solar phenomenon had 
been the foundation of the belief, we should have 
expected a balanced dualism, victory and defeat 
alternating in a perpetually renewed struggle be- 
tween light and darkness, life and death, good and 
evil. We believe that in Amun, the “hidden one,” 
we can still trace an early conception of the 
supreme divinity, brought, probably, by the 
Shemites from the plains of Shinar. The sun was 
naturally turned to as a representative of Amun; 
and they were often blended into one—Amun Ra, 
the hidden and revealed in one. The other deities 
seem to have been personified attributes. With 
regard to belief in a future existence it seems 
necessarily to accompany a belief in deity. 


We cannot say that the character of the a 


Egyptians stood high, either intellectually or 


morally. No writing of theirs survives which be- 
tokens genius or even deep thought. They had 
massive, not graceful, architecture. Art soon 


became stationary. In later ages there was an 


1 Milton, in Lycidas. 


25 


Thess 
explanation 
halting. 


An early 
conception 
of the 
Supreme 
Divinity. 
Amun—the 
hidden one. 


Belief in 
a future 
existence 
seems 
necessarily 
to 
accompany 
a belief in 
eity. 


The 
character 
of the 
Egyptians, 


26 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


Elements in 
Egyptian 
character. 


The 
sovereign 
and the 
people, 


The religion 
of Babylon 
and Assyria. 


The 
antiquity 

of existing 
monuments. 


incongruous blending of Egyptian and Grecian 
architecture. Plodding, patient, industrious, they 
doubtless were. But they were also tyrannical ; 
given to wine; and careless in morals. Some 
add, and not without reason, “lying, thieving, 
treacherous, cringing, and intensely prejudiced 
against strangers.’’? 

In Egypt we may behold a despot ruling a 
nation of slaves. The sovereign reigned as repre- 
senting divinity. Limitation of his power was 
simply inconceivable.2 In no nation, ancient or 
modern—not in ancient Assyria or modern Turkey 
—was “the right divine of kings” ® so deeply im- 
planted in the mind of the subjects. 


9. BABYLONIAN AND AssyRiAN SysTEMs. 


WE come now to speak of the religion of Babylon 
and Assyria. 

The Tigro-Euphrates valley, with its streams and 
rich alluvial plains, was a very early seat of civiliza- 
tion. Monuments exist which may carry us as far 
back as three thousand years before the Christian 
era, or probably farther. The first inhabitants 


1 So R. 8. Poole, in Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible. 


“4 Tiele points out how unlike Egypt was to Israel in this 
respect. The existence of the prophetic order secured to Israel 
almost a constitutional government, or its equivalent. 


3 The right divine of kings to govern wrong.” 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


27 


appear, from the evidence of language, to have been 
Turanian, rather than Shemitic—their language 
_ being of the Ural-Altaic class. The name Akka- 
dian (mountaineer) is now usually given to them. 
Another important tribe, evidently Shemitic, then 
pressed into those fertile regions—probably from 
the Syro-Arabian desert. The two races appear 
to have mingled in Southern Chaldewa, and a high 
degree of civilization was early attained. 

Their religion bore abundant traces of their 
double origin. The Akkadian faith—lhke Turanian 
systems generally—was Animistic or Shamanistic, 
that is to say, fundamentally, spirit-worship. Every 
object in nature, whether animate or inanimate, 
was supposed to be ruled by a spirit. Malignant 
spirits were especially numerous; many of them 
ghosts, that is, the spirits of the dead. The 
spirits, however, were all subject to the control of 
a priest, or wizard. By the power of spelis and 
incantations, the wizard could compel them to do 
his bidding. The Akkadian liturgies that have 
been preserved are almost all exorcisms—mere 
magical formule. 

The Shemitic race, that came in later and largely 
blended with the Akkadians, had a religion of a 
higher type. M. Renan has asserted that all 
Shemites had a monotheistic instinct; but the 
assertion cannot be accepted unless the term mono- 
theism be divested of its ordinary meaning. Most 


The first 
inhabitants 
Turanian. 


A Shemitic 
tribe 

pressed into 
those 
regions. 


Traces of 
double 
origin of 
the religion 


The 
Akkadian 
liturgies 
all 
exorcisms. 


The 
Shemitic 
race had 

a religion 
of a higher 
type. 


°8 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


Mest of the 
Shemitic 
races 
idolatrous 
and poly- 
theistic, 


The sun- 
god among 
the Shemites 
who 
occupied 
Chaldea, 


Life in 
Babylon. 


The early 
development 
of magic.’ 


of the Shemitic races have been conspicuously 
idolatrous, as well as polytheistic; and if it be 
said that one deity was almost always regarded 
as superior to the rest, the same assertion may be 
made regarding other than Shemitic peoples.’ 

The sun-god held a high place among the 
Shemites who occupied Chaldea; and the moon- 
god, one almost equally high. In countries like 
Arabia and Chaldea, the magnificence of the starry 
heavens, and the moon “ walking in her brightness,” 
compel attention by their mystery, their beauty, 
and their beneficence.2 We cannot be surprised if, 
with the mass, admiration passed into adoration. 
Astronomy was studied, and it became astrology— 
one might say, mevitably so. 

The Babylonian faith continued to show clear 
traces of its twofold origin. Life in Babylon must 
have been “almost intolerable;”’? superstition 
conjured up a thousand terrors; unseen malignant 
beings were everywhere, and everywhere plotting 
mischief. Hence, magic early became developed 
into a regular science. Divination, augury, fortune- 
telling, necromancy, and kindred base beliefs flour- 
ished in foul luxuriance. 


1 Thus, Herr Jellinghaus, a missionary who spent years 
among the Kols in India, says they may almost be classed as 
monotheists. They believe in innumerable spirits, but in the 
sun-spirit as supreme. 


2 Very notable in this connexion are the words in Job xxxi. 
26-28, : 
® So Prof, Sayce, 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


29 


NS 


‘Stand now,” exclaims the prophet Isaiah, addressing Baby- 
lon, “ with thine enchantments and with the multitude of thy 
sorceries, wherein thou hast laboured from thy youth.” _ 


The prophet also calls on the “ astrologers, the 

star-gazers, and the monthly prognosticators,” to 
foretell, if they can, and avert, the destruction 
which was fast overtaking the haughty city. It 
would appear that in the court of Nebuchadnezzar, 
the highest place was given to expounders of 
dreams, soothsayers, and astrologers ; and that 
only after them came the civil administrators of 
the empire. 
- The doctrine of one God shines out clear and 
unmistakable in various important documents. In 
Smith’s Chaldean Account of Genesis this 1s very 
fully shown. 


‘At the head of the Babylonian theology stands Anu—a 
deity who is sometimes identified with the heavens—sometimes 
considered as the Ruler and God of heaven.” 


In one important part of the tablet recording 
creation, only one God is mentioned, and simply as 
“the God.” The fragments of the tablet “might 
belong to the purest system of religion.” These 
are important statements. It would be very iter- 
esting if we could determine the date of the re- 
markable document on which Mr. Smith thus 
comments. Professor Sayce thinks that the poem 
on creation (Chaldean Genesis) is not probably older 
than the days of Assur-bani-pal, the grandson of 

4 Isaiah xlvii. 12, 


The place 
of inter- 
preters of 
dreams, etc., 
at the 
court of 
Nebuchad- 
nezzar, 


The 
doctrine of 
one God 
in various 
important 
documents, 


In the 
tablet 
recording 
creation the 
only one 
God is 
mentioned 
as ** the 
God.”’ 


30 


The date 
of the 

poem on 
Creation, 


God’s 
witness to 
Himself 

and 
monotheistic 
tradition, 


Mono- 
theistic 
belief 
never e@x- 
tinguished, 


The 
difficulty 
ef supposing 
that the 
worship of 
one God 
arose out 
of poly- 
theism and 
then sank 
back into 
it 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


Sennacherib—which would bring it down to the 
7th century B.c.; but he also holds that simular 
views prevailed at a much earlier date among the 
Akkadians. The professor speaks of the time 
when monotheistic ideas “arose.” ‘The question, 
however, is whether they had not existed from the 
beginning, at least among the Shemitic portion of 
the people. We believe that God had “never left 
Himself without witness,” and that there was, im 
addition to this, a monotheistic tradition. There, 
doubtless, was a vacillation, an oscillation, between 
monotheism and polytheism; but the former belief, 
though frequently overlaid, was never wholly ex- 
tinguished. Such is the inference which we feel 
ourselves compelled to draw from all the available 
evidence. 

The worship of Anu was gradually superseded. 
His daughter was Istar (Ashtaroth or Astarte), con- 
nected with whom there was a far more sensual 
worship than that of Anu. This in time supplanted 
the older, and purer system.1 All this is easily 
understood ; but if we hold that the worship of one 
God arose out of gross polytheism, and then sank 
back into it, we are landed in inextricable diffi- 
culties. 


1 “The worship of Istar became one of the darkest features of 
Babylonian theology. As this worship increased in favour, it 
gradually superseded that of Anu, until in time his temple— 
the house of heaven—came to be regarded as the temple & 
Venus.”—G, Smith, 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 3h 


When the great inonotheistic idea is surrendered, The multi- 
SI : : 2 . , Plication o 
deities easily multiply. We need not give a list deities 
° resulting 
of Babylonian gods. Merodach seems to have been ‘tm the 


surrender 
a national divinity, the protector of Babylon; and %jno0- 
with him was probably identified Bel, whose name 
is generally supposed to be a variant form of Baal, 
i.€., master, owner. 
Certain parts of Babylonian worship were exces- Impurity 
sively impure. There was a law in Babylon that lus 


worship, 

every woman, once in her life, should prostitute 
herself to any stranger that asked her in the temple 
of the chief goddess. Even Herodotus denounces 
the practice as “ in the highest degree abominable.” 
It seems to have been from Babylon that the hor- 
rible pollution passed over into Greece and Sicily, 
and various other places. 

The Assyrian nation was greatly influenced by te 
the Babylonian, which evidently was the older of of the 
the two.t| The people have been well called “ the naton., 
Romans of Asia.”2 They were a nation of fero- 
cious warriors, in whose nature cruelty seems to 
have been ingrained. They blinded, impaled, tor- 
tured, or flayed alive, their prisoners; while the 
Egyptians, we may note, were by no means s80 
merciless. Their character was reflected in their 
religion. Human sacrifices were frequent. 

Magic, sorcery, and divination were hardly less Mas 
prevalent in Assyria than in Babylon. The pro- ““™ 

1 As stated in Geneais x, 11. 3 By G. Rawlinson. 


32 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


The chief 
ivinity 
of the 


Pheenicians. 


Their 
worship. 


Human 
sacrifices. 


phet Nahum, in his magnificent description of the 
siege and capture of Nineveh, the capital, Saas it 
“the mistress of witchcrafts.” 


8. PuHaniciAN Sysrem. 


We next speak of the Phcenicians, who were early 
distinguished as an enterprizing commercial people. 
We are still doubtful as to their origin and their 
relation to the other Canaanite races. Their chief 
divinity was Baal—also caJled Moloch, who seems to 
have been the sun-god. The sun could be viewed as 
a beneficent being, or as a relentless tyrant flaming 
with wrath; and generally, or at all events fre- 
quently, he was regarded in the latter aspect. 
Only blood —human blood—-could appease the anger 


of the deity when it was deeply roused. Hence 


the priests scourged and gashed themselves; and 
his votaries strove to propitiate him by sacrificing 
their best and dearest. Milton’s celebrated de- 
scription is not drawn in colours over-dark : 


Moloch, horrid king, bedewed with blood 
Of infant sacrifice and parents’ tears, 
Though, for the noise of drums and cymbals loud, 
The children’s cries unheard that passed through fire 
To his grim idol. 
The firstborn especially were thus sacrificed, and 
on occasions of great public calamity multitudes of 
youths of the noblest families were burnt alive. — 


Thus at Carthage, which was colonized from Tyre, 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


33 


when Agathocles had inflicted a severe defeat on 
the citizens, at least two hundred children of the 
noblest birth were sacrificed ;' and when, in turn, 
the Carthaginians had gained a victory, their most 
beautiful captives were in like manner offered up. 
Our readers will remember the frequent mention 
of this dreadful rite in the Old Testament. Among 
Shemitic races, the Hebrews alone were taught to 
hold it in abhorrence. 

This terrible hardness of character was accom- 
panied——-might we not say caused ?*—by another 
leading characteristic of Phcnician worship—its 
shameful lasciviousness. It equalled in this respect, 
if it did not surpass, the Babylonian system. We 
cannot dwell on the disgusting subject. The old 
Akkadian religion had been marked by cruelty ; 
but impurity, as an essential part of worship, was 
foreign to it. This deplorable distinction clung es- 
pecially to Shemitic races—Israel alone excepted. 

The characteristics of the three religions we have 
mentioned—Babylonian, Assyrian, and Phoenician 
—belonged in a greater or less degree to the cognate 


1 The language of Diodorus is not quite clear ; but, as Grote 
observes, the number of children offered up was certainly 200, 
and probably 500, History of Greece, vi1., p. 604. 


3 ‘Lust hard by hate.” So Milton. Or, as Robert Burus 
has it— 
I waive the quantum of the sin, 
The hazard of concealing ; 
But oh! it hardens all within, 
And petrifies the feeling. 


D 


Old 
Testament 
references, 


The las= 
civiousness 


Israel alone 
among 
Shemitic 
re free 


impurity. 
in worship, 


o4 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


Te es EL 


The moral 
degradation 
of the 
seven 
uations of 
Canaan, 


The purity 
of Israel- 
itish religion 
inexplicable 
on 
naturalistic 
principles. 


Assyrian 
ideas widely 
diffused. 


races—such as Ammonites, Moabites, etc. The 
“seven nations of Canaan” are mentioned in the 
Pentateuch as all alike sunk in the depths of moral 
corruption ; so that the land was ready to “ spue 
them out.” This renders the severely pure morality 
of the religion of Israel truly remarkable, and, on 
naturalistic principles, inexplicable. We have no 
right to suppose that, in original temperament or 
character, the Hebrews differed radically from 
their brethren. By what conceivable process, then, 
of natural evolution could their religion arise P 


4. LypiaAn anpd Puryaian Systems. 


WE come now to speak of the chief systems 
that prevailed in the interior of Asia Minor,! 
particularly in Lydia and Phrygia. In describing 
these, we require to state carefully the dates to 
which we refer; for, in those regions, the dis- 
placement of races and religions was very frequent. 
Turanians, Shemites, Aryans, all clashed together 
within the peninsula. The Turanians came first. 
But from the 12th to the 7th century B.c., the 
predominant power in Asia Minor was Assyria; 
and Assyrian (or Babylonian) ideas on religion 
were, in consequence, widely diffused, extending 
even to the Aigean Sea. The Persian dominion 
followed; and Zoroastrian rites to a considerable 

' Strabo, who knew the region well, speaks especially of 


. Cappadocia as having adopted Persian rites to a large extent. 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


extent superseded, or rather, blended with the 
Assyrian, and also with the still more ancient 
Turanian worship, which had never been wholly 
extinguished. It probably was from their Tu- 


35 


Zoroastrian 
rites 
superseded 
or blended 
with the 


ranian descent that the religions of Lydia and ‘Turanian. 


Phrygia were especially marked as passionate and 
orgiastic. Excitement was wrought up to frenzy 
by the beating of drums, the clashing of cymbals, 
and the wildest dances. The worshippers, the priests 
especially, ran howling, cutting themselves with 
knives. All this was terribly apt to end in un- 
bridled debauchery. Such was the worship of the 
Great Mother and the god Sabazios. When these 
rites, along with the closely allied worship of 
Dionysus (Bacchus), had been introduced into 
Rome about the year 176 3s.c., the Senate was 
compelled to suppress them by the strong arm of 
law as being utterly intolerable. 


5. Hirrire Sysrem. 


RecentLy most important discoveries have 
been made regarding the Hittites—a race, or 
union of races, that rose into power in the 16th 
century 8.c., and for centuries contended valiantly 
with the Egyptians on the one side and the 
Assyrians on the other. It might have been 
hoped that their faith would prove, on investiga- 
tion, to be of a higher type than the systems 


Hittite faith 
not purer 
than the 
others, 


36 


Th 
philosop 
of the 
religion 

of Asia 
Minor 
summed up. 


Our 
intellectual 
sympathy 
with the 
Greeks, 


The 
religion of 
Greece 
derived from 
Egypt and 
the East. 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


which have already passed under review. It is 
not so, however. 

‘“The religion of the Hittites seems to have been appropriated 
from the worst features of Babylonian, Phenician, and, latterly, 
Egyptian idolatry.” 4 

We must pause in this sorrowful review. As 
a well-informed writer puts it,— 


‘‘The whole philosophy of the religion of Asia Minor is 
summed up in three words. We find them engraven on a tomb 
found at Kotiaion, in Phrygia: ‘This is what I say to my 
friends: Give yourselves up to pleasure and enjoyment : live. For 
you must die. Therefore drink, enjoy, dance.” ? 


6. GreciAN SysTEM. 


Bur let us pass on-to the fair land of Hellas, 
and to a people with whom we moderns have 
far closer intellectual sympathy,—whose thoughts, 
even when we may not sympathize with them, 
we can at least understand. ‘he religion of 
Greece must have been in a large degree derived 
from Egypt and still more, the East; but the 
shaping spirit of the highly endowed Greeks en- 
tirely changed its original character. It made the 
deities thoroughly human — gigantic men and 
women. ‘They had human passions, virtues, vices. 
They ate and drank, quarrelled and fought, very 
much as the lively Greeks were accustomed to do 
among themselves; and these divinities were some- 


1 So Canon Tristram. 


3 Revue des deux Mondes, Oct. 1873, p. 936. 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


37 


en 0 


times so merry—at a friend’s expense, it might 
be—that “‘inextinguishable laughter” shook the 
skies. Such, at least, is the system that appears 
in the Homeric poems. How far it may have 


been the production of one, or perhaps two minds, ; 


we cannot, with assurance, say; the Greek writers 
generally ascribed its rise to the joint influence of 
Homer and Hesiod; but one would think it could 
only by degrees have assumed its peculiar type. 
The great popularity of Homer imprinted it deeply 
on the mind of the people. Changes, however, 
came on; foreign rites pressed in. Before the 
Persian war a great alteration was visible in many 


respects. The earlier Greeks had been a stirring, T 


joyous, careless race, not much occupied with 
religion ; but gradually there came to be magni- 
ficent temples, priests, solemn ceremonies, mysteries. 
Wild orgiastic religions also appeared, or, if not 
new, they were carried to much greater excess than 
before,—the worship of Dionysus (Bacchus) for 
example, of the Thracian goddess Cotytto, and the 
Syrian god Adonis (Tammuz, as in Ezek. vin. 14). 

In the theology of Homer, as a careful student * 
of the Iliad and Odyssey has admitted, “ elements 
of a profound corruption abound.” Later systems 
were still worse. But philosophy arose. Grave, 
thoughtful men were shocked at the popular con- 
ceptions of deity, and began to denounce them. 

1 Mr. Gladstone. 


of Homer 
and Hesiod, 


e 
character 
of the 
earlier 
Greeks. 
Gradual 
rise of 
temples, 
etc. 


Orgiastic 
religions. 


Corrupt 
elements 
in the 
theology 
of Homer, 


The idea 
of the 
divine 
purged in 
the hands 
of the 
BAER. 


The de- 
basement 
of the 
religion of 


the common 


people. 


Its conse- 
quences. 


The 
retrospect 
profoundly 
painful. 


religion became lower and lower. 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


In the hands of a succession of sages the abstract 
idea of the divine was more and more purged of 
base alloy; but, in proportion as it became refined, 
the notion grew dimmer; until, in the case of 
Aristotle, deity was a power, or a principle, rather 
than a person. Even Plato never inquired about 
the personality of God; he seems rather to think 
of a diffused soul of the world.1 But philosophic 
speculation was not for the common people. Their 
Offences against 
God and human nature ere long flourished in rank 
luxuriance. As both cause and effect of all this, 
a light scoffing infidelity extended among all the 
educated. Then patriotism and public spirit died. 
All that was magnanimous in Greek character 
faded away; the “hungry Greekling” (Greculus 
esuriens) was ready to say, or do, anything for a 
bit of bread. Art itself became debased. Even 
the population began to die out ; in various places, 
in order to prevent fertile regions from being 
changed , into deserts, Roman colonists were 
brought in; and “shocking immorality was the 
cancer that ate into the life of Greece.” 2 

The retrospect we have been engaged in is pro- 
foundly painful. “ Immortal Greece—dear land of 
glorious lays,” exclaims Keble, speaking of the 
classic poetry with all a poet’s passion. Yet notwith- 
standing her subtle intellect, and vivid imagination 


1 So Zeller, 2 So Thirlwall. 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


39 


and perfect taste, she sank into an abyss thus 
fathomless of shame and rum. Why? Even 
Byron saw the reason : 
‘* Enough, no foreign foe could quell 
Thy soul, till from itself it fell, 
And self-abasement paved the way 
To villain bonds and despot sway.” 

It is through the beautiful we reach the good, 
said Schiller. Say rather, through the good the 
beautiful. At all events, when the love of the 
good has passed away, the perception of the 
beautiful perishes soon after. This is one of the 


The abyss 
of shame 


and ruin. 


The lesson 


lessons which is inscribed on the history of Hellas, str: 


as if “graven with an iron pen and lead,” and 
so inscribed “in the rock for ever.” 


7. Roman System. 


We come now to Rome. The Romans were 
originally in many things different from the 
Greeks. Less speculative ; more practical ; simpler, 
truer, graver; more law-abiding; with a better 
family hfe; and possessed of a deeper religious 
instinct. The early religion of Rome had con- 
siderable resemblance to that of Greece, both 
having sprung out of one Aryan faith; but, for 
some time, the two systems tended to diverge, 
each being influenced by its own environment. It 
is interesting to note that the Roman religion had 


The 
resemblance 
of the early 
religion of 
Rome to 
that of 
Greece. 


40 


Points of 
correspon- 
dence with 
the old 
Persian. 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


special points of correspondence with the old 
Persian, as unfolded in the Zend-avesta.1 Much 
more importance was attached to rites than 
to beliefs or emotions—the worship tending to a 
punctilious externalism ; prayer became a kind of 
magical formula; much stress was laid on cere- 
monial purity; the mythology was meagre. <A 
new departure took place towards the end of the 


_ regal period. Images were now introduced ; and 


The religion 
becomes 
more 

and more 
political. 


Greek and 
Asiatic gods 
press in, 


The spread 
of unbelief 


and 
immorality. 


temples, increasing in splendour, began to appear. 
The religion became more and more political, and 
was regulated by the State. But cold formalism 
could not satisfy the popular mind and heart. 
First, Greek and then Asiatic gods and goddesses 
pressed in. Infidelity succeeded, at least among 
the higher classes. The poet Ennius, a Calabrian 
Greek, was among the first to propagate it. During 
the two centuries that preceded the birth of Christ, 
unbelief spread like a pestilence, and immorality 
kept pace with it. Each was both cause and effect 
of the other. In vain did the elder Cato strive to 
keep out the infection; im vain did he inveigh 
against the Greeks as the “ parents of every vice;” 
corruption rushed on, as Augustine says, “like a 
headlong torrent.” Family life greatly changed ; 
divorce became fashionable ; and women—in many 
cases, women of the highest rank—became shame- 


1 So the Zend and Latin languages have special points in 
common. 


Christianitu and Ancient Paganism. 


less in their degradation. Even noted historical 
personages, with whose names. we do not readily 
associate the idea of vice, were men of abandoned 
life. Thus Dr. Arnold speaks with severe repro- 
bation of “the utter moral degradation” of Julius 
Ceasar. A deep darkness, almost amounting to 
despair, seemed settling down on the minds of 
men. Suicide prevailed, in consequence, to an un- 
paralleled extent. 

But the nemesis of infidelity is superstition. The 
old Italic religion had been comparatively pure. 
Thus in the very name of the chief god, Jupiter 
Optimus Maximus, we find the ideas of supreme 
goodness and supreme power.! But when these 
had perished, something was felt to be needful in 
their place; and dark, gloomy faiths—hideous 
brutal mysteries—from Egypt, Asia Minor, and 
Babylon—flowed in to fill the intolerable void. In 
Greece itself, as religion declined, magic and sor- 
cery, its miserable substitutes, had greatly flourished. 
Soin Rome. Conjurors, soothsayers, astrologers, 
and fortune-tellers filled every street, and insinuated 
themselves into every household. ‘‘ Professed 
atheists trembled in secret at the mysterious power 
of magical incantations;” many invoked the 
shades of the dead, or strove to penetrate into the 

1 So Cicero: Te, Capitoline, quem propter beneficia populus 


Romanus optimum, propter vim maximum, nominavit.—Pro 
domo sua, c, 57. 


41 


Dr. Arnold 
on Julius 
Cesar. 


The 
nemesis of 
infidellty. 


The 
influx of 
superstition. 


Fears of 
professed 
atheists. 


42 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


Matthew 
Arnold’s 
sketch of 
the mental 
condition of 
the higher 
classes in 
Rome. 


Renan’s 
testimony. 


Greek and 
Roman 
philosophy. 


Stoicism. 


The 
conception 
of man as 
man not 
foreign to 
it. 


secrets of futurity by examining the entrails of a 
murdered child.t 

Mr. Matthew Arnold, with a few strokes, has 
given us a vivid sketch of the mental condition of 
the higher classes in Rome: 


On that hard Pagan world disgust And secret loathing fell, 

And weariness and sated lust Made human life a hell. 

In his cool hall, with haggard eyes, The noble Roman lay,— 

He drove abroad in furious guise Along the Appian Way ; 

He made a feast, drank fierce and fast, And crowned his hair 
with flowers— 

No easier and no quicker passed The impracticable hours. 


M. Renan’s testimony is the same. He states 
that, under the empire, Rome became a very hell 
(un vrai enfer). 


It may, perhaps, be thought that in the preveding 
estimate we have overlooked the value of Greek 
and Roman philosophy. On that head, then, we 
still add a few words. 

Morally, the best philosophical system was 
Stoicism. We have spoken above of the value of 
this philosophy in the development of jurisprudence. 
The later Stoicism certainly enunciated various im- 
portant principles in ethics. Thus the cosmopolitan 
idea—the conception of man as man—was not 
foreign to it. It admitted that slaves were not 
mere things, but possessed of rights. Stoicism did 
not readily lose itself in speculation; it clung 
firmly to the idea of duty, and was intensely prac- 


? Merivale’s History of Rome, vol. 1. p. 514, 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


43 


tical, Seneca expresses sentiments which have so th 


much of a Christian ring that many have held that 
he must have derived them from intercourse with 
St. Paul; though that is scarcely probable. 

We must cherish for such men as Epictetus and 
Marcus Aurelius that kind of wondering regard 
with which we think of Buddha. Seneca, however, 
was a mere rhetorician ; his fine periods were flatly 
contradicted by his life. 

But Stoicism cherished an immeasurable pride ; 
and it wrapped itself in an icy, self-worshipping 
selfishness. Its theology was pantheistic,’ really, 
if not confessedly. It held that all things were 
ruled by the iron necessity of fate. On the whole, 
the most favourable estimate that can possibly be 
formed of this haughty philosophy is that of Reuss : 


“ The fine ideas of Roman Stoicism were buds which only the 
sun of the Gospel could develop into beauty and perfection ; 
but which, if left alone, would never have produced rich fruits.” 


We have thus failed to trace in the great Pagan 
systems of antiquity any grand conceptions which 
Christianity did or could incorporate with itself. 
At the same time, there were in most, or all, of 
them what have been called “ unconscious pro- 
phecies” ? of better things. Prophecies, or even 
anticipations, in any strict sense of the word, these 
assuredly were not; but they were questionings, 


1 So Zeller. 2 By Archbishop Trench especially. 


e 
Christian 
ring of 
Seneca’s 
sentiments. 


Epictetus 
and Marcus 
Aurelius. 


The pride 
of Stvicism, 


Reuss’s 
estimate of 
Stoicism. 


* Uncone= 
scious 
prophecies ”? 
of better 
things in 
Paganism. 


44 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


A conscious yearnings, aspirations—a feeling that the heart was 


emptiness 
of the 
heart, 


coming of 
Christ, 


The age— 
ong pre=- 
paration 
for it. 


Com- 
mingling 
of creeds 
consequent 
on the 
conquests 
of Alex- 
ander and 
extension 
of Roman 
dominion. 


empty, and the desire, sometimes the hope, that it 
might yet be filled. And HE who sees the end 
from the beginning, was all the while preparing to 
answer those questions, satisfy those cravings, and 
fulfil, yea exceed, the highest anticipations ever 
formed by | 

The prophetic soul 

Of the wide world, dreaming on things to come. 

Christ came, says St. Paul, “in the fulness of the 
time.” For His coming, it is easy to see that a 
manifold preparation had been made, extending 
throughout the ages. With a view to this grand 
consummation, the kingdoms of the world had risen 
and fallen. All things had been “shaken,”? in 
order that the false and the fleeting might be 
shaken off, and that the true and the eternal might 
have room to grow and unfold their holy beauty. 

It was indeed “the fulness of the time,” in the 
largest sense of these significant words; but we 
must here limit our view to religion, and one 
aspect of the “ fulness.” 

We have seen the deplorable condition into 
which each of the great religions of Paganism had 
fallen. The conquests of Alexander the Great, 
and the extension of Roman dominion, had led 
largely to a commingling of creeds. - Traces of 
Oriental systems could be found even in Britain. 


1 Haggai ii. 6, 7. 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


45 


But the union of eastern and western thought 
had produced no happy results. Egypt, Babylon, 
Assyria, Phenicia, Lydia, Phrygia, Greece, Rome 
—these and other nations had toiled, as we may 
express it, to scale the heavens and there find 
God; but every attempt had ended in vanity and 
vexation of spirit. We can hardly feel surprise 
that the difficulty of ascertaining truth and the 
endless conflict of opinion led many thoughtful 
men to discard the consideration of religion alto- 
gether. Why should they pursue a shadow that 
ever eluded their grasp? What Justin Martyr 
says of the philosophers of his time—the com- 
mencement of the second century—applies with 
equal force to the century preceding: 

‘* Most of the philosophers never consider the question whether 
there be one God or many ; whether there be a Divine Pro- 
vidence or not.” 

Thus, growing scepticism among the educated, and 
grosser and grosser superstition among the common 
people, were the melancholy characteristics of the 
age which ushered in the Christian era. 

But God had not forsaken the world. He had, 
as St. Paul expresses it, “suffered all nations to 
walk in their own ways,”! though, at the same 
time, He had “ never left Himself without witness.” 
The history of the race bears, in several respects, a 
resemblance to that of an individual. Man is very 

4 Acts xiv. 16, 


No happy 
results 

from the 
union of 
eastern 

and western 
thought. 


The 
difficulty of 
ascertaining 
truth led 
many to 
discard 

the con- 
sideration 
altogether. 


Justin 
Martyr 

on the 
philosophers 
of his time. 


The world 
not forsaken 
by God. 


46 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


re EE 


attempt to 
find out 
God. 


The need of 
a divine 
revelation 
demonstra- 
ted. 


The 

advent 

of the Light 
of the 


world. 


proud; he will not seek the help of God until he 
feels himself helpless. To the question of the 
patriarch, “Canst thou by searching find out 
God ?;’ he would boldly have answered, Yes, until 
he had repeatedly failed in the proud attempt. 
More than three thousand years had passed since, 
in Chaldea and Egypt, he had first essayed the 
great problem; and the demonstration of the 
necessity of a divine revelation had been over- 
whelmingly ample. At least some of the higher 
minds had seen it; and Plato sighed for a thevos 
logos. Or, if man did not fully see it, yet the 
yearning heart of heaven could wait no longer. 
And, therefore, as the apostle plainly puts it, 

‘¢ After that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew 
not God, it pleased God by the foolishness [i.e., what man called 
foolishness] of the preaching to save them that believe.”? 

In the moral world, as in the physical, the 
dawn precedes the sunrise. The Sun of Right- 
eousness came not unheralded. The first streaks 
of day had appeared long ago, and the reddening 
of the eastern sky announced the speedy advent 
of the “Light of the world.” 


1 Archdeacon Farrar has repeatedly used the phrase, —‘“‘ ethnic 


- inspiration.” We think the expression unhappy, and fear it 


will be misunderstood and misapplied. But the Archdeacon 
has lately said that Heathenism was ‘‘a vast failure,” and “‘ the 
light of any other religion compared with that of Christianity, 
but as a star to the sun.” 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


47 


8. Tue Fairu or Israk. 


For- two thousand years, and possibly more, 
one race had stood apart from all others, “ dwell- 
ing alone, and not reckoned among the nations.” 
It is in the divine trainmg of this people—and 
not where many vainly seek it—that we are to 
look for the true evolution, or development, of 
religion. 

There are men who question the accuracy of our 
conceptions regarding Abraham. But even the 
destructive criticism, in the last resort, postulates 
an Abraham, or some equivalent starting-point ; 
otherwise, Moses becomes an inexplicable phe- 
nomenon. ‘The grandeur of the position occupied 
by the latter is, of course, undeniable. 
has said: 


Kuenen 


** Even from the time of Moses, Yahveh (Jehovah) comes forward 
with moral commandments. This is the starting point of 
Israel’s rich religious development; the germ of those glorious 
truths which were to ripen in the course of centuries.” 


It is not too great a stress which is thus laid on 
the ethical character of the Mosaic faith. The 
Ten Commandments arose in serene imperishable 
majesty at least fifteen centuries before Christ. 
There is no parallel fact in the history of Pagan 
systema, “Be ye holy, for I am holy” was the 
sublime oracle of Israel’s God, and of Israel’s God 
alone. 


The true 
evolution 
of religion 
to be found 
in the 


Israel. 


Moses ine 
explicable 
without 

Abraham, 


The ; 
grandeur 0 

Abraham’s 

position. 


Kuenen on 
the com- 
mandmenta, 


No fact in 
the history 
of Pagan 
systems 
parallel to 
the rise of 
the ten com- 
rwiandments, 


48 


Yahveh 
not a mere 
tribal God. 


Recognized 
as @ power 
above all 
powers, 
pure yet 
com- 
passionate. 


Kis people 
freed from 
superstitious 
terrors by 
His power 
and 
presence. 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


Many critics assert that Yahveh was at first 
viewed as only a tribal god, who protected Israel, 
while rival deities protected other nations. That 
belief is based on the pure assumption that the 
history of Abraham, as given im Genesis, is of 
comparatively late origin; for the Lord is there 
spoken of as “ Almighty,” as “ Judge of all the 
earth,” and so on. But waiving the case of 
Abraham, and supposing we could admit that the 
people in Egypt, enslaved and in every way de- 
moralized, rose no higher than to conceive of 
Yahveh as only their god; yet He was, at all 
events, recognized as a power above all powers— 
a personality—a Creator—ruling nature, never 
identified with it—awfully pure, yet infinitely 
compassionate — forgiving iniquity, and trans- 
gression, and sin, yet punishing the impenitently 
wicked—a Being that abhorred all the cruel and 
abominable rites in which the Pagan gods were 
believed to delight—whose power and presence 
freed His people from all the superstitious terrors 
and the miserable magic which formed so large a 
part of the worship of surrounding nations. Hven 
if the so-called higher criticism could prove that 
some of the conceptions now referred to were 
possibly inserted in the Pentateuch at a com- 
paratively recent date, yeb no one can deny that, 
at all events, by the eighth century before Christ, 
there are declarations regarding Jehovah and His 


aight 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


49 


worship which, in truth and sublimity, have never 
since been surpassed. ‘Fake that passage, for ex- 
ample, in the prophet Micah which has extorted 
the admiration of Professor Huxley : 


‘‘ Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before 
the high God? Shall I come with burnt offerings, with calves 
of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased: with thousands of 
rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my 
first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the 
sin of my soul? He hath showed thee, O man, what is good ; 
and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and 
to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God ?” 

Not less remarkable than these lofty utterances 
is the declaration that Jehovah hated evil in His 
own people even more than in less favoured 
nations : 


‘“You only have I known of all the families of the earth 3 
therefore will I punish you for your iniquities.” 


The gods of the nations were thorough partizans; 
they sided with their worshippers through nght and 
wrong. Jehovah loved His people much, but right- 
eousness still more. Admuirable is the passionate 
denunciation of the hypocrisy which would divorce 
two things that ought ever to be linked in indis- 
soluble wedlock—religion and morality : 


*« Shall I count them pure with the wicked balances and the bag 
of deceitful weights, and the scant measure that is abominable ?” 


The vehemence and measureless scorn with which 
polytheism and idolatry are denounced are also 


most striking. In all other nations the deities 
E 


Sublime 
declaration 
concerning 
Jehovah 
and His 
worship in 
the eighth 
century 
before 
Christ. 


His hatred 
of evil in 
His own 
people, 


His love 
of righteous- 
ress, 


Denuncia- 
tion of 
pola 


an 
idolatry. 


50 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


Rg enn 


The hope- 
fulness of 


The Hebrew 
seers never 


Israel and 
the world, 


in an 
dividual. 


multiplied ; and image-worship rooted itself more 
and more deeply as time went on. 

We must pause in our enumeration of the cha- 
racteristics of the Hebrew Scriptures. Yet one 
other must still be noted—their hopefulness. 
When the great monarchies which walled Israel 
in—especially Egypt and Assyria—-were trampling 
down the liberties of nations and spreading around 
them their abominable idolatries, and when, to all 
appearance, the cause both of God and of man was 
lost, the noble seers of Israel never despaired, never 
once desponded, in regard to the future of Israel 
or of the world. All things they knew were in 
the hands of One who was Almighty, All-wise, 
and All-gracious. “ Be still, and know that I am 
God,” that is, be calmly confident, and trust in 
Me: such was the command. One unchanging 
purpose—a purpose of mercy—ran throughout the 
ages. Let them in patience possess their souls : 
for in “the day of the Lord”—“ the latter day”’ 
—every crooked thing was to be made straight; 
the Lord alone should be exalted; all iniquity was 
to stop her mouth; the meek should inherit the 
earth, and delight themselves in the abundance of 
peace. More and more the hopes of the nation. 
were made to centre on an individual—“ the Coming 
One ”— the Messiah ”’—“ the Prince of peace ; ” 
and in Him all the families of the earth were to 
be blessed; He would be a light to lighten the 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


Gentiles, as well as the glory of the people of 
Israel. 

And while prophet after prophet was raised up, 
all moved by one Spirit, but each unfolding the 
message of instruction, admonition, or encourage- 
ment, or applying it to the special circumstances 


51 


of his time,—and while the whole ceremonial wor- The 


ship was one vast prophecy of good things to come, 
and recognized by thoughtful men as such 1—the 
providence of God was marvellously training the 
nation for its lofty function. Events that appeared 
simply evil were overruled to work out good. The 
captivity in Egypt—the sojourn in the wilderness 
—the division of the nation into two halves—the 
captivity in Babylon—the persecutions under Syrian 
kings—and the conquest of Judwa by the Romans 
—it is not difficult to see how each of these events 
was fitted to raise the mind of the people to truer 
conceptions of God, and teach them deeper lessons 
of righteousness, of sin, and of salvation. 


Meanwhile, the wide diffusion of the Greek lan- Th 


guage, the translation into it of the Old Testament, 
and the contact of Greek and Jewish thought— 
especially in such centres as Alexandria—were 
_ very important preparations for the proclamation 
and reception of the Gospel over the civiliz 
world. | 


1 See Kurtz on the sacrificial worship of the Old Testament 
for proof of thia, 


providential 
training of 
Israel for 
its lofty 
function. 


The 
SUCCeSS1V6 
events 

in the 
history of 
the people 
fitted to 
elevate 
their con- 
ceptions of 
God, 


e 
diffusion of 
the Greek 
language an 
important 
preparation, 


52 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


nt 


Virgil’s 
expectation, 


Augustine. 


8t. John. 


The 
_ teaching 
of Christ, 


IIL. 

Tus, then, at the pre-appointed time—in “the 
fulness of the time ”—dawned “ the Light of Life” 
on men. And now—as Virgil sang, in expectation 
of some glorious change that was hastening on— 

‘Magnus ab integro seclorum nascitur ordo ; ”? 
or in the words of Augustine : 


‘Christ appeared te the men of a worn-out dying world, that 
when every thing around was sinking into decay, they might, 
through Him, receive a new and youthful life ;” 


or in the far sublimer language of St. John: 


‘‘The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us; and we 
beheld His glory—the glory as of the only begotten of the 
Father ; full of grace and truth: and as many as received Him, 
to them gave He power to become the children of God.” 


He taught. He taught those truths to which— 
though often feebly and fitfully—the human reason 
and conscience have borne witness throughout the 
ages. He gave the metal without alloy: His 
words were pure, as “silver purified seven times.” 
Then, the majestic verities enunciated by the 
prophets of Israel He explained, applied, and also 
developed and enlarged. He taught by words; 
He taught by deeds. His entire life was one con- 
tinuous revelation of God and truth. 


He wrought 
With human hands the creed of creeds,— 
In loveliness of perfect deeds 
More strong than all poetic thought, 


2 Now commenceth anew the mighty roll of the ages, 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


PINE LE RS SR RSE LS rig cea 


He died. The good Shepherd gave His life for 
the sheep. That death, that Cross, that love 
victorious over agony, is the divinest manifestation 
of the Divinity. It is the full expression of the 
mind and heart of God; so that, when once it has 
taken place, HE who longs adequately to reveal 
Himself to His creatures, and whom to know is 
life eternal, can enter into ineffable repose and say, 
“Tt is enough: My creatures can know Me now.” 

And Christ rose again—rose to the immediate 
presence of God. There He is exalted a Prince 
and a Saviour, “to give repentance and forgiveness 
of sins to Israel,”’ and to all. 

Such very briefly were the truths which His 
disciples were commanded to proclaim to all nations, 
“beginning at Jerusalem.” But it is one thing to 
know the truth, and another thing to obey it. We 
are all familiar with the sorrowful confession of 


the poet Ovid: 
Video meliora proboque, 
Deteriora sequor.' 


Moral truths were not unfrequently inculeated by 
heathen sages. But these sages felt and deplored 
the exceeding difficulty of inducing others to follow 
their precepts. They regarded the mass of men as 


hopelessly sunk in ignorance and vice, and only a ms 


small number as so happily constituted that they 
would ever seek to rise to the serene heights of 


1 J see the right, and I approve it too. 
Condemn the wrong, and yet the wrong pursue, 


The 
difficulty of 
the sages 


54 


— — 


The effect 
of the pro- 
clamation 
of the 
Gospel. 


A stupend- 
ous al 
unparalleled 
spiritual 
revolution. 


The dis- 
appearance 
of the 
forms of 
Pagan 
faith. 


The gods 
of Egypt. 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


wisdom and virtue. But lo! a marvel. For when 
once the silver trump of the “glad tidings” 
sounded abroad, the lowest depths of society were 
stirred; and the grandest conceptions which the 
human mind can form regarding God, and the 
soul, and holiness, and sin, and reconciliation, and 
love, and heaven, and hell, now filled the minds, 
and moved the hearts, and shaped the lives of mul- 
titudes, who, until now, had been dead to every- 
thing but grovelling ideas and debasing lusts. A stu- 
pendous spiritual revolution; in suddenness and com- 
pleteness wholly without a parallel. An entire trans- 
formation in the individual believer, and through 
individuals a gradual transformation of society.’ 


It was a conflict of centuries before the great 
systems which we have been considering gave 
way before the victorious march of Christianity. 
But successively and completely all of them did 
give way. All those vast forms of Pagan faith . 
have melted away like snow in the sunbeam. Or 
rather say, the great thirst which the Gentile 
nations sought to quench by drinking of muddy 
and polluted streams, could now be slaked at the 
river, “clear as crystal, proceeding out of the 
throne of God and the Lamb.” 

The brutish gods of Egypt have perished. We 
have visited the Serapeum—that vast subterranean 


1 Nos ergo soli innocentes, We alone are innocent, -—was 
ertullian’s bold, but unanswered, challenge.—A pol. 45 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


receptacle of dead gods—and found it filled with 
immense granite sarcophagi, each contaiming the 
embalmed form of an ox-god, Apis.1 Was the 
resurrection expected? No resurrection for them 
is possible. Baal no longer exalts himself as the 
rival of Jehovah. Chemosh, “the abomination of 
the Moabites,”’ and bloody Moloch, are alike for- 
gotten. In Babylon, Bel has “ bowed down” and 
Nebo has “stooped,” never to rise again; and 
Dagon of the Philistines has fallen once more,— 
and now not even the stump of him is left. 

Even so have passed away the deities of Greece 
and Rome. ‘The Parthenon still crowns the Acro- 
polis of Athens; but Pallas Athene, the guardian 
goddess, has fled; her very name is scarcely re- 
membered there. On snowy Olympus “ black- 
clouding Zeus”’ no longer holds his throne; and 
the god of the silver bow, Pheebus Apollo, is dis- 
carded alike at Delos and at Delphi. A Christian 
church stands cn the spot where once arose the 
majestic temple of Jupiter, the guardian of the 
Capitol. Meantime the Roman empire has been 
broken in pieces; but the religion of Christ, sur- 
viving that convulsion, has converted and tamed 
the wild barbarians who overwhelmed the ancient 
world, and has given birth to a form of civilization 
with the continuance of which are inseparably linked 
the dearest hopes of humanity. 

1 There seem to be sixty-four of these sarcophag? : 


5d 


No 
resurrection 
possible 

for them. 


The deities 
of Greece, 


The break 

up of the 

Roman 
mpire, 


What the 
religion of 
Christ has 
done, 


The omni- 
potence of 
Christ. 


The kee 
taught b 
Christ a 
viewed by 
Him as 
salt. 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


Ss feed PS SEDO RE RS Ae eee 

And whence this unexampled power? That 
problem exercises and perplexes the minds of many 
at this day. It was the fuller, deeper truth He 
taught, say some. It was His character—match- 
less in purity and love, say others. Yes ; but there 
was more, much more; and we have no reason to 
believe, if as Mr. Matthew Arnold says, the Syrian 
stars look down upon a grave from which He never 
rose, that Christianity could have long survived His 
crucifixion. Not the so-called omnipotence of 
truth, but the omnipotence of Him who is the 
Truth, has won the victory. As said the Apostle : 
‘Being by the right hand of God exalted, and having received 
of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost, HE hath shed forth 
this which ye now hear and see.” 

Christ Himself spoke of the truth He taught as 
at once light and salt. View it for a moment 


under the latter aspect. Mere worldly gifts and 


1 It would be easy to adduce from many writers far removed 
from orthodox Christianity, strong language regarding the un- 
equalled elevation and purity of Christ’s character. Our limits 
restrict us to me or two quotations. Spinoza says : <‘The eternal 
wisdom has manifested itself in all things, but chiefly in the 
human mind, and most of all in Jesus Christ.” (Aiterna 
sapientia sese in omnibus rebus, maximé in humana mente, 
omnium maximé in Christo Jesu manifestavit. Zpist. xxi.) 
Goethe said, ‘‘I bow before Jesus Christ as a revelation of 
supreme morality.” Still stronger is the testimony of John 
Stuart Mill. Mr. John Morley indeed finds fault with Mr. Mill 
for his admiration, and uses depreciatory language, but without 
any attempt to support the charges made. Is this consistent 


with Mr. Morley’s ideas of delicacy and justice ? 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


57 


a a TY 


graces tend lamentably to become corrupt, and to 
perish in their corruption. Without religion, with- 
out the religion of Christ, the human race could 
never raise, and never maintain, the noble fabric 
of a true manhood and an enduring civilization. 
Certainly there was much in the culture of ancient 
Greece that was intellectual and refined; much 
that was stately and seemed strong in that of 
ancient Rome; but the preserving element, the 
salt, was wanting ; and either form of civilization 
ere long became morally corrupt, and sank in ruins. 
But now—whatever elements of truth or beauty— 
whatever pure forms of life appear in any land 
or age, Christianity despises them not, nay, she 
thankfully accepts them. She blends them with her 
own diviner life, so warding off corruption, and 
rendering these otherwise perishable treasures, “an 
everlasting possession.” Forms of social life which 
ancient sages sometimes dreamt of, but despaired 
of realizing in a world like this, have been suc- 
cessfully wrought out and maintained by the 
Gospel; for its legitimate offspring ever is that 
godliness which is “profitable unto all things, 
having promise of the life that now is, as well as 
of that which is to come.” 


We read, a short time ago, in a paper written 
by a well-known leader among the Comtists—Mr. 
Frederic Harrison—that ‘Christianity does not 


The 
religion 

of Christ 
essential 

to the 
elevation of 
the human 
race. 


Christianity 
accepts and 
assimilates 
all elements 
of truth 
and beauty. 


The profit- 
ableness of 
godliness. 


Mr, Fred. 
Harrison’s 
assertion 
about 
Christianity, 


58 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


Christianity 
touches 
human life 
at every 
point, 


The 
question of 
the stability 
of our own 
civilization. 


Victor 
Cousin on 
civilization, 


The con- 
sequences 
of the 
prevalence 
of difterent 
forms of 
anbelief, 


even claim to be co-extensive with human lie.” 
Either Mr. Harrison or we must have entirely mis- 
read the New Testament. To our apprehension it 
claims to touch human life at every pomt—to 
mould and magisterially direct every thing in in- 
dividual, domestic, and public hfe. For it lays 
down principles which penetrate man all through, 
building up the individual anew from the very 
foundation of his being, and, through the individual, 
as we have said, reforming and regulating society. 
Accepted, it regenerates the man; and, so far as 
accepted, it regenerates the world. It reconciles 
man with man by reconciling man with God. 


In the preceding pages we have sought to state 
and illustrate facts—avoiding, as far as possible, 
mere speculation. Yet one question unavoidably 
suggests itself, after this long review of fallen 
civilizations and extinct systems of belief. What 
of our own civilization P is it secure? We answer, 
Yes, if our Christianity is secure. ‘Civilization 
in our day,” said Victor Cousin, “means Christ- 
ianity.” If we draw inferences from the past, 
we must hold that were materialism, agnosticism, 
or even mere deism to prevail to any considerable 
extent, the consequences would be most serious. 
Morality would gradually give way. Then the 
nemesis of which we spoke above! would soon step 


in. In vain would an infidelity, calling itself 
1 See page 41. 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


59 


scientific or philosophic, rear its proud head and 
try to suppress all faith ;—bastard forms of belief, 
and low, superstitious practices would force them- 
selves in, and infect, ere long, the savants them- 
selves. Les incredules les plus credules} said Pascal. 
Even already we witness, to our astonishment, the 
spread, to some extent, in Europe and America, of 
theosophy, “esoteric Buddhism,” and various kindred 
follies—precisely as, of old, Plotinus and Porphyry 
had a legitimate successor in Iamblichus, and 
soaring philosophy was debased into magic and 
theurgy. 

These things are, no doubt, humbling. Yet we 
do not bate a jot of heart or hope. Christianity 
cannot perish. Even now, while we mourn over 
the falling away of some, one plainly sees that, 
taking the human race as a whole, Christianity is 
steadily extending and deepening. Trial may be 
in store,—the forces of belief and unbelief may be 
ranging themselves for a final struggle; but, ere 
long, to Him, who now rules in the midst of His 
enemies, “‘every knee shall bow, and every tongue 
confess.” Does there seem a tone of pride—while 
rebuking pride—in these words of ours? If s0, 
we desire to put the feeling from us—remembering 
the words of the blessed Master: “I, if I be lifted 
up from the earth, will draw all men unto Myself.’’? 

1 Unbelievers are the most credulous of all. 
2 duauréy, 


Esoteric 
Buddhism 
in Europe 
and 
America. 


Christianity 
spreading 
and 
deepening. 


Its ultimate 
triumph 


60 Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


i 


He was first lifted up on the cross, before He was 
lifted up to His throne in heaven ; and it is now 
only by the manifestation of His cross and its deep 
meanings that hard hearts are melted and drawn 
to Him with irresistible attraction; and doubtless 
the bright consummation of a regenerated and 
rejoicing world would be sooner reached, if only we, 
His followers, had more of the Master's spimit— 
ever seeking in meekness and love like His 


The 
attraction 
of the 
cross. 


With winning words to conquer willing hearts 
And make persuasion do the work of fear. 


christ ant He who said of Himself, “I am the Light of the 


His people. 

ee world,” said also of His people, “ Ye are the light 
The of of the world.” He is the Sun. His Church is the 
the Church 


the Church Moon; which, in His absence, 1s commanded to 
shine, full-orbed and cloudless, on the world. 
Oh, Church of the Living God! “arise, shine, 
for thy light is come; and the glory of the Lord 
is risen upon thee.” 


APPENDIX. 


On exw ReELIcions oF UncrvinizeD ANcIENT NaTIONs.— 
We have already intimated that little notice need be taken of 
these. Nearly everything we know about them is fitted to 
excite disgust and horror. 

1. Drutpism was the faith of the Celtic (including the Cymric) 
races. We have notices of it in seven or eight classical writers 
—particularly Czesar, Tacitus, and Pliny. A few hints may be 
gathered from old Gaelic and Welsh poems—such as those of 
Ossian and Taliessin ; but their historical value is questionable. 

The Druids, the religious leaders of the people, were of three 
classes. The lowest consisted of the bards ; the second of those 
who watched natural phenomena; the highest were more 
properly priests. An arch-druid presided over all; who ap- 
parently wielded unbounded power. 

There were also three classes of Druidesses. The highest 
formed a kind of Vestal virgins ; who lived in sisterhoods and 
never married. These predicted coming events, cured diseases, 
raised storms or calmed them, and transformed themselves into 
whatever shape they pleased. In fact, the lingering superstitions 
about witches in Western Europe are traceable back to Druidis 
times. 

With regard to the deities the Roman poet Lucan speaks thus 3 


Here Hesus’ horrid altar stands, 

Here dire Teutates human blood demands ; 
Here Taranis by wretches is obeyed, ; 
And vies in slaughter with the Scythian maid.’ 


The oak tree, the acorn, and especially the mistletoe—a small 
plant that grows on the oak—were especially sacred. Worship 
was performed in dark groves.” Human sacrifices were frequent. 
Cesar informs us that they made enormous figures of wicker 
work, and filled them with human beings, whom they burnt to 
death. ———— 

1 Rowe’s Lucan, Book i. 

2 Lucan, Pharsalia, Book iii., gives a striking description ¢ 
@ gloomy grove near Marseilles. 


Notices of 
Druidism 
in classical 
writers, ete. 


Three 
classes of 
Druids. 


Three 
classes of 
Druidesses. 


Secred trea. 


Human 
sacrifices. 


62 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 


Excom- 
municatior 
and its 
penalty. 


Ancient 
German 
religion. 
morall 
no higher 
than the 
Celts. 


Nature- 
worship its 


foundation. 


No account 
of the 
Slavonian 
faith in an 
old form, 


Even the priestesses performed such dreadful services. Strabo 
speaks thus of these among the Cimbri: ‘‘The women who 
follow the Cimbri to war are accompanied by grey-haired 
prophetesses. They go with drawn swords through the camp, 
strike down the prisoners they meet, and drag them to a brazen 
caldron. There is an erection above this, on which the priestess 
cuts the throat of the victim, and watches how the blood flows 
into the vessel. Others tear open the bodies of the captives and 
judge from the quivering entrails as to future events.” 

Excommunication by the Druids was a tremendous infliction. 
It must have involved death or unconditional submission to the 
priests.” 


2. THe RELIGION OF THE ANCIENT GERMANS.—Cesar and 
Tacitus supply us with interesting information regarding this 
system ; and the Edda of Scandinavia tells us much regarding 
its character at a later date. Ib was morally no higher than that 
of the Celts. 

Nature-worship was its main foundation. Sun, Moon, Fire, 
Earth, were greatly worshipped. Woden (in the Edda, Odin) 
was the chief deity; he was the god of war. Thunor (Thor) 
was the god of thunder. He wielded, and made much use of 
a tremendous hammer. Lok, or Loki, was an evil keing, at 
war with the gods; but at present a tortured prisoner. Walhalla 
was heaven. It was a place where the blessed warriors every 
day hacked each other to pieces, then got cured, and wound up 
the day by drinking mead—an intoxicating beverage—out of 
the skulls of slaughtered enemies. 

Human sacrifices—especially of captives—were frequent. A 
King of Sweden is said to have sacrificed nine of his sons in 
succession, in order to prolong his own life. A kind of wild- 
beast ferocity marked the people: the celebrated death-song 
of Ragnar Lodbrok ‘‘ breathes slaughter” throughout. All 
hopefulness seems banished from this faith. Balder, the 
brightest of the gods, is slain; and we are approaching the 
dreadful time 


When Lok shall burst his sevenfold chain, 
And night resume her ancient reign; 


8. Tue RELIGION oF THE ANCIENT SLAVONIANS.—We have 
no satisfactory account of this faith in a very old form. The 
last stronghold of it was the island of Rugen, in the Baltic. 


Christianity and Ancient Paganism. 63 


This was destroyed in 1168 by Waldemar, King of Denmark. 
Saxo Grammaticus, a contemporary of Waldemar’s, gives a long The account 
account of the chief idol there worshipped. He describes it as fo Aerani 
a gigantic figure, with four heads and four necks—two breasts cus. 
and two backs. Cattle were sacrificed to it. In sweeping the 
temple, the priest did not dare to breathe; and for every 
necessary inspiration he had to quit the temple. At the religious 
festivals intemperance was deemed a merit. ‘The idol had a 
horse, of whose tail or mane to pull a single hair was sacrilege. 
It bore the god whenever he fought against his enemies, and 
was often found in the morning covered with sweat and mud 
in consequence. A standard consecrated to the god entitled 
those who bore it to pillage even the temples, and to commit 
any kind of outrage. Such is the testimony of Saxo 
Grammaticus. ; 
The religion of the Slavonians was evidently very childish ; Saicodan 
but it was not so ferocious as that of the Celts or the Germans. childish. 


roa Wl, 
at) 


ly 
wT 


A 
Ayre Fé 


. ey | “phe aks 
~~ gk ae a 
ih a aN : 


: 
Ne Bi) . 


Ge 4, 
‘ 


Aik RAD Ra eMee 
{ 


ny bey ; ein fut ale ao, if 


bib < x 
, a 
. on 


Rl ah SSA 


Nel poten te? tif 4 bi. 


CHRIST AND CREATION: 


A TWO-SIDED QUEST. 
BY 


REV. W. SUNDERLAND LEWIS, M.A. 


Argument of the Oract. 


REVELATION and observation—methods of obtaining information which 
are often distinct, but to be sometimes combined. This eminently the 
case in regard to the relation between Christ and Creation, the subject of 
the present inquiry. 

Beginning with Creation, these two authorities are shown to concur, first, 
as to the universality of the reign of law amongst visible things ; next, as 
to the general nature of the gradations marking the great ladder of being; 
then, as to the place of man, and 80 of Christ as man, at the head of that 
ladder; and, finally, as to the place of Christ as the head of mankind. 
The same authorities further agree in regarding the superiority of man to 
the animals as partly of a mental, but more of amoral, description ; and also 
in regarding the primacy of the historical Christ as resting on a similar, 
but far profounder, foundation. He is so much the greatest, because so 
transcendently the best, of mankind. 


Revelaticn speaks also of the glorified Christ. Its language on this 
subject tells us—amongst other things—of certain changes in the risen 
body of Christ as the precursors and patterns of similar future changes in 
many other bedies beside ; though only, be it noted, where certain correla- 
tive non-bodily changes have taken place first. This is a prediction, in 
effect, of the future appearance on earth of a new pattern of life. Sucha 
prediction not only already verified in part by the experience of many; but 
also, at least, illustrated in measure by the researches of Science ; and that, 
both in its general character, and its more important details, as specified 
here at some length. 


The result, so far, is the establishment of a numerous and weighty 
succession of correspondences between Scripture and Science, and the con- 
sequent demonstration of the main points on which these correspondences 
turn. In other words, Christ is the Crown of the past, aud the Key of 
the future. So far, our two oracles are at one. 


This conclusion leads to further inquiry. If Christ be so much, is He 
not very much more? The suggestions of observation and the teaching of 
Revelation combine toshow that He is. He is the Creator of all. 


Hence, therefore, at last, the peculiar complexity, intimacy, and pro- 
foundity, of the relation of Christ to Creation. He is at once the Fellow- 
creature and the Creator of all that is made ; the Keystone, as it were, of 
the whole arch of existence. Hence, also, the miserable inadequacy of all 
Non-Christian views of the cosmos. The best of them teaches men more 
error than truth. 


A brief corroborative reflection is added. What Science says respecting 
“degradation” in general is compared with what Scripture says on the 
degradation, condemnation, and redemption of man. ‘lhe harmony of 
this with our previous conclusions leads to the conclusion of all. The 
secret of Creation lies in the Person of Christ! The secret of Redemption 
lies in His Cross! ‘In Hum are hid At the treasures of Wisdom ane 
Knowledge,” 


CHRIST AND CREATION: 


A TWO-SIDED QUEST. 
eet 


iE 
INTRODUCTORY. 


(===29 nveLATioN and observation are methods 


A tse, of ascertaining truth which are con- 
Sy 4 cerned chiefly with different fields of 

~ inquiry. The one tells us about the 
unseen; the other searches among the seen. For 
all this, however, it is not always practicable to 
keep their operations apart. The explorations of 


‘the latter amongst the things that are seen some- 
times bring us so close to the shores of the unseen 
as at least to suggest a good deal. In the same 
way, the instructions of the former about the 
unseen sometimes tell us not a little respecting 
‘he things that are seen. 

It seems to follow, therefore, that there are lines 
of inquiry in which we are more than warranted 
in seeking to avail ourselves of both these sources 
of light. Where the topic under discussion Ww wu 


Revelation 
and 


observation 
different 
methods of 
ascertaining 
truth. 


Lines of 
inquiry in 
which hoth 
May be 
wee:\ 


Christ and Creation. 


a 


What 

is the 
relation 
between 
Christ and 
Creation ? 


Ihis inquiry 
a case in 
point. 


3ome inter- 
pretations of 
Scripture 
and con- 
clusions of 
Science are 
generally 
uccepted. 


These now 
to be 
combined, 


on which they both offer to enlighten us, why 
should either be slighted? We are hardly likely, 
in that case, even with the assistance of both of 
them, to have more light than enough. 

It is on this principle accordingly that we desire 
to act in our present inquiry. Is there any rela- 
tion between Christ and Creation? Between the 
Jesus of Scripture and the Cosmos of Science? 
And if so, of what kind is it? and how far does it 
reach? Itis evident, we think, that these inquiries 
are of the two-sided sort we have named; and are 
manifestly such as take us within the domains both 
of Scripture and Science—both ot knowledge and 
faith. With regard to most of these inquiries, 
also, it seems equally evident that the utterances 
of both these authorities respecting them are de- 
serving of attention and thought. 

Notwithstanding much that is still uncertain, é.7., 
in our interpretations of Scripture, there are some 
explanations of it which are almost unanimously 
regarded as not admitting of doubt. So, also, 
notwithstanding the large proportion at present of 
what is merely conjectural amongst the inferences 
of science, there are some of its deductions which 
are unanimously regarded as almost beyond the 
reach of dispute. The most important and ap- 
parently relevant of these generally-accepted con- 
clusions on both sides, are what we now seek to 
combine. Accepting them all—for the momen 


Christ and Creation. 


at any rate—as being correct in the main, we 
would endeavour to see to what extent they appear 
to throw light on the subject of inquiry. The 
special interest of such an endeavour is evident 
from the first. Its full importance, if we mistake 
not, wiil come out at the end. 


Ii. 
Curist THE CRowN OF THE Past. 


We may fitly begin our inquiry with that por- 
tion of our subject which lies the nearest to our- 
selves. Unquestionably, as human beings, we are 
part and parcel of that visible universe which is 
the special field of the researches of science. We 
would ask first of all, therefore, what those re- 
searches tell us about its constitution and nature ; 
and especially what they describe as the leading 
feature of all that we see. That word “cosmos” 
already referred to, shall help us to answer. By 
that well-known term science gives emphatic utter- 
ance to one of her most prominent views. The 
visible universe is a “cosmos,” according to her, 
because of the extraordinary perfection of “ order” 
and “beauty ” which the observation of man has 
learned to discern init throughout. So Pythagoras 
is believed to have taught, ages ago, by coiming 
that term. So every step in true knowledge since 
his time is believed to illustrate and confirm. Be- 


GW 


The interest 
and im- 
portance of 
so doing. 


Human 
beings part 
of the 
visible 
universe, 
What 
Science 
tells us 

of the 
universe. 


The 
universe a 
** cosmos.” 


The 
teaching of 
Pythagoras 
confirmed 
by Scienge 


6 


ee 


Science 
teaches 
that the 
universe is 
sonspicuous 
for its 
exhibition 
of law. 


Revelation 
expresses 
the same 
thought. 


The 
account of 
the visible 
universe 

at the 
beginning 
of Genesis 
recognizes 
the presence 
of law. 


Christ and Creation. 


fore all things science teaches us that the universe 
is conspicuous for its exhibition of law. Every- 
thing exists— everything changes— according to 
rule. 

Does the teaching of Revelation say anything, 
and if so, to what effect on this subject? The 
method proposed by us requires us to consider this 
next, A very brief reference appears sufficient to 
settle the point. The first page of the Bible shows 
that the language of Revelation expresses the same 
thought ; expresses it identically, only—as some 
think--in a more logical way. It speaks of a 
Ruler, that is to say, as well as a rule. It re- 
cognizes a Lawgiver as well as a law. And it in- 
vites our first and chief attention, therefore, rather 
to Him than to it. ‘In the beginning God 
created the heaven and the earth.” None the less, 
however, but rather all the more, does the exceed- 
ingly concise account of the visible universe which 
follows that opening sentence of our Bibles, re- 
cognize the perpetual presence of law. The idea 
of “order” is woven into it from beginning to end. 
If you destroy its order you destroy itself, whether 
in whole or in part. What special order, what 
studied order, there is in its times! What equal 
order, what conspicuous order, in the array of 
its facts! How careful its description of all the 
life it mentions as being “after its kind.” What 
explicit mention also, in other parts—as in describing 


Christ and Creation. 


v4 


a 


the functions of the sun and moon, for example— 
of the imposition of rule! Is not the absolutely 
orderly constitution of all things, in a word, the 
special conclusion to which it points us itself? 
More than once the chapter pauses to speak of 
that described by it as “good.” At the end of all 
it speaks of all described by it as being more still. 
“God saw everything that He had made; and 
The meaning of this-— 
at any rate, in part—is easy tosee. Thatis “good” 


behold, it was very good.” 


in moral matters, according to Scripture, which is 
Righteousness is the 
observance, sin the transgression of law. In other 
than moral matters, therefore, such as these which 


in compliance with rule. 


are here, a thing will be “ good” in this same kind 
of language when it answers its end; im other 
By 
parity of reasoning, consequently, it will be “very 
good’ when it answers its purpose to the full ; 
when its accordance with rule is without a flaw. 
Except in depth, therefore, wherein does this state- 
ment of Scripture differ from that fundamental 
deduction of science to which we adverted just 
now? What is the discovery of the one but the 
announcement of the other—so far as it goes P 
After the fact of this universal order comes the 
thought of its manner. We will examine this first, 


words, when it is in accordance with rule. 


as in the previous instance, from the side of human 
research. In that visible universe of which we 


The 

orderl 
constitution 
of all 
things the 
conclusion 
specially 
pointed to. 


God’s 
declaration 
concerning 
everything 
that He 
had made, 


It was 
every 
good ’”’ 
because it 
answered its 
purpose to 
the full, 


The 
discovery of 
science 

is the 
announce. 
ment of 
revelation, 


8 


The 

lowest 
condition of 
matter 
known to 
human 
research. 


The 

world of 
inorganic 
existence. 
The ele- 
mentary 
forces 
supplemen- 
ted by 


higher ones. 


The 
vegetable 
kingdom. 


A third 
and higher 
eroup— 
the animal 
kingdom, 


A higher 
still—the 
world of 
rational 
existence, 


Christ and Creation. 


are speaking, human research knows of nothing 
lower than that condition of matter in which it is 
believed that its so-called ultimate atoms are acted 
on by elementary forces alone. To this category 
belongs the whole world of inorganic existence. 
Immediately above it comes another ‘ condition, 
in which these elementary forces have been sup- 
plemented by others of a higher description. ‘T'o 
this category may be assigned all those vastly 
varied lower forms of organization and life 
which constitute the vegetable kingdom, as it is 
called. In the category next above this—a cate- 
gory in which both the previously-named groups 
of forces have been supplemented in turn by a 
third group of a still higher description—that 
higher world of distinctly sentient existence which 
is comprised in the so-called animal kingdom, is to 
be found. Lastly, by the addition of other energies 
yet to the whole previously-existing ageregation of 
forces, we come to a higher world still, the world 
viz., of distinetly rational or intellectual existence. 
Ordinary observation cannot be said to know any- 
thing which is higher than this. 

Notwithstanding the fact that a greater or less 
degree of uncertainty may be thought to attach, 
by some persons, to some of its gradations, the 
above may be accepted as a general view of the 
successive steps in the great ladder of existence so 
far as known to our senses. It may be doubted, in- 


Christ and Creation. 


© 


a 


deed, whether it is possible at present to offer very 
much more; and whether any inquireris yet com- 
petent to give a description of the gradations in 
question, which shall be otherwise than uncertain in 
some of its limits, or more than approximate im any? 
But this does not affect, in any vital manner, the 
question before us. All that is asserted here is, 
that there is a principle pervading them of the 
kind we have named. The second step of this 
ascent is not arrived at, that is to say, by thrusting 
the lowest away, but by building upon it. The 
third step is built, in like manner, on both the 
second and first. And the highest of all, therefore, 
is built in like manner again on all the others 
below. Nothing is subtracted, in short, but much 
is added all the way up. 

It is important to notice what follows from 
this as to the nature of man. He stands, ad- 
mittedly, at the very summit of this ladder of 
being. It follows, therefore, this being its cha- 
racter, that his nature is as thoroughly elementary, 
on the one hand, as it is thus pre-eminent on the 
other. He is as certainly animal, that is to 
say, as though he were not human as well. In 
some respects, again, he is as much the creature 
of instinct, as though he were not, at the same 
time, under the guidance of reason as well. And 
he is as certainly composed and built up of such 
elementary substances as carbon and nitrogen and 


One 
principle 
pervades al} 
the steps 
of the 
ladder of 
existence. 


The two- 
fold aspect 
of the 
nature of 
man as at 
the summit 
of this 
ladder. 


10 


Christ and Creation. 


annem recs 


Faith’s 
description 
of man. 


His pre- 
eminence. 


The first 
order below 
him—the 
cattle, etc. 


Then the 
grass, ete. 


Then the 
severed 
lands”? and 
** rathered 
waters,” 


Man not 
divided 
from any 


* Grass’? 
aad ‘‘flesh,”’ 


phosphorus, and so on, as though he were not also 
possessed of those highly distinguishing mental 
powers which no man at present can produce by 
their means. Of the same materials, in a word, 
as all that he sees, he is yet above it throughout— 
a highly-elaborated pillar of clay on a pedestal oi 
the same. 

Faith’s description of the nature of man, and of 
the world he belongs to, though not identical with 
this description, is not at variance with it. In many 
important respects, we may rather say that it is 
tantamount to it throughout. On the one hand, 
e.g. it describes man as standing at the summit of 
a practically identical ladder of being. First 
below him, as in the previous description, it shows 
us “the cattle, and creeping things, and fish 
of the sea, and fowl of the air.” Next below 
them, as in the previous case too, it shows us the 
“prass” and the “herbs” and the “trees of the 
field.” And below these again, as in the previous 
case still, those severed “lands” and gathered 
“ waters” upon, or in, or out of the elements com- 
posing which all this manifold and multitudinous 
life is described as being produced. On the other 
hand, though placed thus at the summit of all, man 
is not described here, any more than before, as being 
divided from any. On the contrary, it is said 
expressly that “he also is flesh.” And it is also 
said, just as expressly—and that, apparently 


Christ and Creation. 


11 


ee ee 


with something more than a reference to the mere 
perishability of his nature—that “ all flesh is grass.” 
And of man himself, therefore, as of everything 
under him, that he is of “the dust of the 
earth.” 

This conclusion marks a definite step in the 
progress of our inquiry. ‘The wildest unbelief 
acknowledges fully the true manhood of Christ. 
And faith, of course, while affirming still more, 
affirms as much as this too. According, therefore, 
to both these ways of regarding the question, the 
relation of Christ to creation—at any rate in the 
first instance—is the relation of man to the same. 
In other words, the historical Christ was at once 
superior, and yet akin to all the things that we 
see. 

It is with human beings, however, as we see it 
to be with the clouds in the atmosphere of this earth. 
Though all are necessarily above that from which, 
nevertheless, they have all been drawn up; they 
are not all above it, by any means, at the very 
same height. We see the direction, therefore, in 
which we must inquire next concerning the true 
position of Christ. What was that position in 
reference to those of the rest of mankind P 

The question does not really admit of more 
answers than one. In this respect also Christ was 
admittedly at the summit of all. As a matter of 


Man of 
*the dust 
of the 


_ ground.’ 


The true 
manhood of 
Christ ac- 
knowledged 
by unbelief 


The 
historical 
Christ at 
once 
superior 
and akin 


His positior. 
in relation 
to the 

rest of 
mankind. 


12 


Christ and Creation. 


nS rE 


The name 
of Christ 
and the 
place of 
Christian 


civilisation. . 


In the eye 
of faith 
Christ the 
bighest of 
men. 


the present moment it is certain that the name of 
Christ is the most influential name upon earth. 
Christian civilisation, at the present moment, is the 
highest we know. What isit, in effect, but the suc- 
cessor of others which held similar rank in their 
day ? At one time the civilisation of Rome, such as it 
was, had conquered the world by its arms. Every 
one knows how the civilisation of Greece, by its 
culture, subdued this in its turn. The civilisation 
of Christianity, which is the civilisation of Christ, 
has long overcome both. How significant the fact 
that we have the Gospel message in the language of 
Greece; and that the most illustrious of tongues 
found its highest function in telling the world about 
Christ ! 

To the same effect, on this point also, does 
our other. authority speak. It is simply no- 
torious, in fact, that to the eye of faith, Christ 
is the highest of men. In the language of faith, 
to be a “Christ” or an “ Anointed One” at all, 
is to be one set apart for great use. To be “the 
Christ,” therefore,—to be the Anointed One—is to 
be the most distinguished among such. It is to 
stand amongst them as they stand amongst the rest 
of mankind. Consequently, itis to be adorned with 
a crown which it were flat treason even to offer 
elsewhere. 

This brings us, of course, to a second definite 
step in discussing the relation of the historical 


Christ and Creation. 


Christ to the things that are seen. He stands at 
the head of those beings who stand at the head of 
them all. 

On this point, however, a further question re- 
quires to be asked. When we speak of the manhood 
of the historical Christ as bemg confessedly the 
highest of all, in what precise sense is this true? 
Wherein had that manhood its chief advantage 
over all else that was human? In almost every 
crown there is some individual jewel which shines 
brightest of all. Was there such a jewel, and, if 
so, what was its nature, in this particular crown P 

The inquiry necessitates a further view of the 


complex nature of man. In all that we have 1 


hitherto said of him here, we have tacitly assumed 
that his intellectual faculties have most to do with 
securing him the eminent place which he holds. 
And it cannot be denied that they are of real mo- 
ment in regard to this point. Without undertaking 
to dispute the existence of anything similar to those 
faculties in some apparently exceptional races or 
members of the purely animal world, it cannot be 
denied that he is very widely differentiated in 
this respect even from these. The well-known 
fact that any marked approach to those mental 
processes which we reckon on in him, astonishes us 
in them, seems to prove this of itself. It may be 
doubted, however, for all this, whether we have 
the key of the case in this fact; and whether the 


Wherein 
the 


manhood 
of Christ 
excels all 
else that is 
human. 


e 
intellectual 
faculties 

in relation 
to the place 
of man in 
creation. 


The 
difference 
between 
man and 
the highest 
members 
of the 
purely 
animal 
world. 


14 


The 
crowning 
advantage 
of man 
lies in 

his moral 
rather 
than his 
intellectual 
endow- 
ments. 


Signs of 
shame and 
fear in 
animals. 


The sense 
of right 
and wrong 
in the 
abstract 
peculiar 
so man. 


_ Explains 


the sense 
of shame 
men feel 
in secret. 


Prompts 
the open 
confession, 


Christ and Creation. 

nt 
crowning advantage of man over the brutes does 
not lie rather in his moral, than in his intellectual 
endowments. Here again it is no doubt true of 
some among these—more especially so, perhaps, 
of those species amongst them which are brought 
much into contact with men—that they do some- 
times seem to evince something like a sense of 
duty or right. At any rate, where they have 
distinctly disobeyed the commands of those to 
whom they look up as their masters or owners, 
they do sometimes show undoubted signs, if not of 
shame, yet of fear. But this cannot be put ona 
par for a moment with that sense of right and 
wrong in the abstract, and that inward approba- 
tion of the one and disapprobation of the other, of 
which human nature seems to be always capable, 
even when found at its worst. Why else is it 
that men sometimes find themselves blushing in 
solitude at their secret misdeeds? Why else is it, 
also, that they sometimes even find a relief in 
making these known? If that inward disquiet 
which prompts them to this were merely a kind of 
reflection—as some affirm that it is—of the dis- 
approbation and ill-usage which such offenders fear 
from others, supposing those others to know of their 
secrets, surely, instead of urging them to make those 
things known, this would be just the feeling to 
prevent them from doing anything of the kind. 
Certainly it would never lead a man guilty of mur- 


- man is this essential part of his nature. 


Christ and Creation. 


der, for example, to give himself up spontaneously 
to certain ignominy and death—as has happened 
frequently before now. Clearly the principle that 
does this must be something apart from other 
men’s thoughts. Clearly, also, the principle that 
does this must be something essential to the normal 
nature of man. Individuals who appear to be 
almost wholly deficient in this respect, may be 
discoverable here and there, it is true. But this is 
no more wonderful in its way than the occasional 
occurrence amongst us of individuals who are 
wholly unable to distinguish discords from con- 
cords, or bright objects from dark. Deafness and 
blindness are not to be regarded, on that account, 
as the normal condition of men. 

It is easy to see also, on the other hand, how 
intrinsically superior to everything else within 
It is 
superior, first, inits strength. We test the strength 
of a force by its conquests. What can it overcome 
at its best? In the cases just referred to, we see 
what this principle of conscience can overcome at 
its best, viz. the fear of ignomimy and death. It 
is hard to name anything, indeed, which this same 
principle has not overcome in its time. It is im- 
possible, therefore, to name anything within man 
which is stronger than this in its way! This 
principle is superior also, in the next place, in 
regard to its rank. Even in that depth of remorse 


1d 


The moral 
sense 
essential to 
the nature 
or man, 


Cases of 
men 

destitute 
of moral 


sense 
abnormal, 


The . ity 
superiori 

of the 
moral sense 
to every- 
thing else 
in man, 


The 
supreme 
power 

of this 
principle, 


16 


Something 
in remorse 
not to be 
treated with 
*corn. 


How much 
its absence 
means, 


How much 
its per- 
fection 
unplies. 


A further 
necessary 
distinction. 


The 
imperfection 
of a man’s 
knowledge 
of right 
often due 
to his weak 
sensitiveness 
to evil, 


Christ and Creation. 


just now adverted to, we all feel that there 1s 
something working which ought not to be treated 
with scorn. The wretch who feels it, however 
otherwise degraded, is higher than the wretch who 
does not. Do we not all feel also, on the other 
side of the case, that the less a man is capable 
of this inward compunction for evil, the nearer 
he is to the brute? As also that the more he is 
restrained by the positive side of the same principle 
from the commission of evil, the more eminent is 
his worth? After all, what we most profoundly 
admire in a man lies in this direction alone. It 1s 
not his talents, not his endowments, not his powers, 
not his attainments, but his character that we 
respect! The more CONSCLENTIOUS, the more of 
a MAN! 

One other thing also, in regard to this point, 
must not be passed by. This “ conscientiousness i 
is not quite so simple a thing as it looks. It 
is a “function” rather “of two variables,” as 
the mathematicians express it. Not only, that 
is to say, are there differences of sensitiveness 
among men with regard to the attainment of 
right; there are also among them equal differ- 
ences of opinion as to the nature of mght. Practi- 
cally, also, these differences are found to tell very 
much on each other. A man’s knowledge of right, 
e.g., is sometimes very imperfect because, with his 
weak sensitiveness on the subject of evil, he has 


Christ and Creation. 


never wished it, in reality, to be very much more. 
He has loved darkness rather than light. So, on 
the other hand, the comparative imperfection of a 
man’s knowledge of right, not infrequently has the 
effect of causing his desire for it to be weak. He 
loses the power of sight, as it were, for the want of 
light, as with certain creatures in caves. Probably 
of the far larger majority of mankind we should not 
be very wrong in saying that they have suffered 
somewhat—if not suffered greatly—in both these 
respects. Their sensitiveness as ‘o right has been 
impaired because their standard «f right has been 
low. On the other hand, their standard of right 
has been lowered because their sensitiveness about 
it has been weak. And thus in both ways, there- 
fore, there has been a sore diminution in their 
moral superiority to the brutes. Sometimes, in 
fact, that superiority will be found to have shrivelled 
into little more than a certain capacity for being 


_ ashamed—a relic which serves principally to give 


evidence of what ought to have been! 

These considerations may enable us now to give 
a sufficient answer to the question previously asked. 
The great superiority of the historical Christ to the 
rest of mankind lies in the lines we have traced. 
Where all other men fail in some measure, where 
most other men fail egregiously, He succeeded 
entirely. In other words, with neither of the 
disadvantages, He had both the advantages— 

¢ 


17 


Imperfect 
knowledge 
often causes 
his desire 
for right to 
be weak. 


Lamentable 
diminution 
thus caused 
sometimes in 
man’s moral 
superiority 
to the 
brutes, 


The 
superiority 
of the 
historical 
Christ to 
the rest of 
mankind 
moral, 


18 


Christ and Creation. 


eae erences msec 


The key to 
Christ’s 
superiority 
lies in the 
absolute 
perfection 
of His 


example. 


The 
attempt to 
blacken 
His name 
felt to be 
hopeless. 


Christ the 
best of His 
race. 


How 
Revelation 
at once 
transcends 


and confirms 


this 
eonclusion. 


and that to perfection—of which we have spoken. 
Never was anything purer than His teaching, 
unless it were His example. This was the jewel 
which made His diadem the solitary thing that it 
was. He was so specially the highest, because, in 
every way, He was so far the best of mankind. 
Even those who are not prepared to admit all that 
is claimed for the Jesus of history by His Church, 
admit this to be true. This is evident from the 
tone taken by them in attempting to account 
otherwise for His fame. It is felt now to be a 
kind of forlorn hope to try and blacken His 
name. No hypothesis can now expect to be 
listened to, to any serious extent, which starts 
with the assumption of evil in Him. Such is the 
verdict of nearly twenty centuries of hostile ob- 
servation and thought. What the experience of 
the world has never claimed for any other it 
admits about Him. He was the best of His race. 

Revelation, of course, in proclaiming Chnist to 
be the Man “without sin” goes beyond this a 
ereat deal; and in so doing, of course, confirms 
it also in the strongest possible way. According 
to both witnesses, therefore, we are brought to 
the same conclusion respecting the ethical position 
of Christ. Incontestably He held the moral pri- 
macy among the children of man. 


Christ and Creation. 


19 


or 


III. 


Curist THE Kry or THE Future. 


Hrruerro, in considering the relation of Christ 
to Creation, we have purposely taken only a partial 
view of the case, We have only contemplated 
Him as He existed on earth before His death 


on the cross. Of the nature of Christ as it © 


existed in those subsequent days of which the 
Scriptures also inform us, we have refrained from 
speaking as yet. But it is evident, of course, 
that we must do so no longer if we would take 


a complete view of our subject. Revelation lee a 


speaks to us—and that not less copiously—of a 
glorified Christ. And it is saying the least, 
therefore, to say of this latter part of His story 
that it must not be left out. 

In discussing this, it will be best, on many 
accounts, to begin with the Scriptural side. What 
do those Scriptures which assure us of the rising 
again of Christ from the dead, and of His subse- 
quent manifestation “by many infallible proofs ” 
to those who had best known Him before, tell us 
besides on this point? What do they tell us, 
especially—for this has most to do at this juncture 
with our present inquiry—about that bodily nature 
in which He appeared at that time P 

The answer is plain enough in some respects, if 


Christ after 


The 
testimony 
of Scripture, 


20 


The post- 
resurrection 
body of 
Christ. 


Its 
appearance. 


The effect 
on Ilis 
followers. 


Its 
eharacter. 


No longer 
subject to 
death. 


Christ and Creation. 


ceeetinal 


somewhat mysterious in others. After the rising 
again of Jesus of Nazareth, the Scriptures ascribe 
a body to Him which was in several ways “ higher ” 
than that in which He had previously died. It 
was a body “higher,” in the first place, in 
fashion or look. That singular mixture of hesita- 
tion and adoration which is described as marking 
the behaviour of those intimate friends of Christ, 
to whom He is said to have showed Himself after 
His passion (see Matt. xxvii. 17; John xxi. 12), 
suffices to prove this of itself. Evidently now, 
they see something other—evidently now, they see 
something higher—than aught which they had 
previously seen. That risen body is also described 
in Scripture as having become something “higher” 
in character than what it previously was. The 
well-known fact that the Christ who had pre- 
viously died is now described as having become 
the Christ who never can die again (Rom. vi. 9), 
suffices to prove this of itself. All the difference, 
in fact, between immortal and mortal is implied 


in such words. At the same time these changes 


That new 
body not 
another. 


in the appearance and character of the body of 
Christ are never represented to us as being of 
such a nature as to sever its connection with 
that which existed before. After all, that new 
body is not so new as to have lost identity with 
the old. ‘Handle Me, and see that it is I My- 
self.” 


Christ and Creation. 


i 


This, however, is by no means all that is de- 
clared to us on this point. Revelation, on the 
contrary, always describes this mysterious change 
in the body of Christ as at once the precursor 
and the pattern of many others beside. History 
is, in this matter, to follow its custom of repeat- 
ing itself. In other words, either along the same 
path as that which was travelled by Christ, or 
else along a shorter path still, changes similar 
to those which passed on the body of Christ at 
His resurrection, are to pass hereafter on many 
other Vodies as well. This is taught us plainly, 


on the one hand, in general terms: “We shall te 


not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.” This 
is taught us, on the other, with no less plainness, 
As in the 
previous case of Christ Himself, e.g., there is to 


as to the main details of the change. 


be a change in dook, to begin. A change in look 
which shall have the effect of making the bodies 
affected by it similar in appearance to that of 
Christ Himself (see Phil. iwi. 21; 1 John im. 2). 
Also, as in the previous case again, there shall 
be a change, after the pattern of Christ, in cha- 
racter too—that which is now mortal or subject 
to death in the subjects of this change, becoming 
victor over it then (1 Cor. xv. 53, 54). 
finally, as in the previous case still, the change 
effected shall not be such as to involve loss of 
identity with that which existed before. This 


And yet, 


Q) 


The same 
change to 
take place 
in other 
bodies. 


This 
taught 

in general 
ms. 
Details 

of the 
change. 


Appearance 


Character, 


to) 
destruction 
of identity, 


22 


Christ and Creation. 


en  ——————— 


The change 
eternal 
deliverance 


rom 
destruction. 


Every man 
not to be 
changed. 


experienced. 
The 

teaching of 
Scripture on 
the subject. 


“mortal” is to “put on” immortality; this “cor- 
ruptible” is to put on “ incorruption ;” they are 
not to be obliterated thereby. So far, in fact, 
will the change in question be from effecting 
destruction, that it will deliver from it for ever. 
One other feature requires to be noted in what 
Scripture says to us on this point. We are not 
taught to look for these great external changes im 
every man’s case. Only, in fact, where certain 
similar internal changes have taken place first, 
are we to expect these outer ones to ensue. The 
language of Revelation is notably consistent, as 
well as peculiarly deep on this point. We have 
already noticed that, even in man at his worst, 
there exists a certain slumbering and unen- 
lightened capacity for distinguishing moral evil 
and good; a capacity which is supposed by some 
to be sealed (see Prov. xx. 27, Eph. v. 14), in his 
pneuma or spirit. But, except for this, the Bible 
describes man as he is as a wholly “psychical ” 
being. He has a merely “psychical” or “natural” 
mind, in a merely “natural” body. In _ both 
respects, however, he is described to us as being 
susceptible of amendment. On the one hand, he 
is so, in regard to his “mind.” When that 
“mind” or “ spirit” is touched effectually by the 
power of the Spirit of God, Scripture describes 
it as becoming “ quickened” or “ created anew,” 
with such consequent powers of appreciation and 


Christ and Creation. 


23 


will and performance in regard to spiritual 
matters as it never previously knew. Not un- 
reasonably, therefore, when the spring of a man’s 
nature has been “ spiritualised” thus (if so we 
may speak), is such a one spoken of in Scrip- 
ture as having become a “spiritual” man. Not 
unreasonably, also, in such a case, is that other 
and outward branch of amendment spoken of as 
sure to ensue. Nor is it unreasonable lastly, 
when that is so, that the new outward nature 
thus brought into being should be described to us 
by a similar name. 
case. 


Such, at any rate, is the 
“Tt is sown a [psychical or] natural body ; 
In that fact, so 
the apostle teaches us, we have the essence of 
all. In that fact we can see, also, that we are 
in the presence of the consummation of all. Even 
if it be not in our power—whilst still this side of so 
momentous a change—to discern all that is meant 
by the smgular and striking term here employed 
to describe it, we can at least perceive the beauty 
and admire the harmony of the idea. Such a 
favoured tenant in so glorious a dwelling—such a 


it is raised a spiritual body.” 


“spiritual” mind in such a correspondingly “ spiri- 
tual” body—such a likeness to Christ in inward 
faculties and in outward expression as well—make 
up together a completeness of symmetry which 
lacks nothing even in thought. 

Thus much, in a general way, of the Scriptural 


The 
quickened 
becomes ‘fa 
spiritual 
man.,”? 


becomes “a 
spiritual 
body.” 


The ideal 
perfection of 
this two-fold 
likeness to 
hrist. 


24 


The same 
subject 
from the 
side of 
human 
research. 


Many have 
already 
experienced 
the inward 
ohange. 


To despise 
their 
testimony is 
to despise a 
great fact. 


Christ and Creation. 


view. We have to ask next, whether anything 
can be learned about this branch of our subject 
from the opposite side. Do any of the accredited 
results of human research bear upon it at all? 
And, if so, in what manner P And to how great 
an extent ? 

The first of these questions is not to be answered 
at once in a negative way. So far, on the contrary 
as concerns one particular field of human ex- 
perience, the very reverse appears to be true. 
There are multitudes of men, at any rate—them- 
selves the successors of similar men in the past 
_who deliberately declare themselves to be al- 
ready the subjects of one part of this change. 
They know themselves now to be other than they 
were at one time—so they distinctly assure us— 
in the things of the spirit.. They find themselves 
moved by desires, they find themselves in the en- 
joyment of faculties, they find themselves conscious 
of powers of which they knew nothing before. 
Such testimony is a fact which no one who deals 
with facts can afford to despise. In all other 
subjects of inquiry a greater degree of evidential 
weight is attached to the testimony of experts— 
be they many or few—than to all the random 
guesses of all the inexperience of all the rest of 
the world. We are at a loss to know why we 
should not do the same in this subject as well. 

Even apart from such testimony, however, there 


Christ and Creation. 


Steers ee, 


are many positive facts which at least seem de- 
serving of attention in regard to this point, 
What the various Scriptural statements just 
quoted really amount to, when all taken to- 
gether, is a deliberate prediction of the future 
appearance amongst us of a new pattern of life. 
When all that of which they assure us shall be 
fully accomplished, there will be a new description 
of man—a new variety of being—on the face of 
this earth. Is this at all at variance, is it not 
rather in exact accordance (so far as it goes), with 
some of the most honoured deductions of scientific 
inquiry regarding the past of this earthP Ac- 
cording to these deductions, there has been a Jong 


succession of similar manifestations—manifesta- ? 


tions similar in their novelty, if not in anything 
else—on the face of our earth. We are told 
that its crust, in fact, for furlongs downwards, is 
a vast repertory of the remains of such beings; 
and that the whole number of living forms which 
have first appeared, and then disappeared, in the 
days of the past, is considerably greater than. the 
whole number in existence at present. Viewed 
in this general way, the Scriptural announcement 
which we are considering only adds another term 
to this almost immeasurable series of being; and 
simply declares that that shall be in the future 
which has been in the past. The inferences of 
science almost prophesy—the same thing, 


25 


Other facts 
deserving of 
attention, 


The 
Scriptures 
referred to, 
a virtual 
prediction 
of a new 
pattern 

of life. 


The 
deductions 
of science 
on this 
oint 

in accord- 
ance with 
Scripture, 


The 
Scriptural 
announce- 
ment only 
adds anothe 
term to an 
almost im- 
measurable 
series of 
being. 


26 


Christ and Creation. 


Parallelisms 
illustrating 
Scriptural 
statements. 


In the 
order of 
existence 
the lower 
precedes the 
higher, 


In the 
predicted 
genesis of 
the new 
man the 
natural 
precedes 
the 
spiritual. 


The 
principle 
of addition 
as referred 
to before. 


The same 
principle 
found in 
Scripture 
teaching 
concerning 
the predicted 
higher life 
on earth. 


Also, if we turn from this general view of these 
Scriptural statements to the consideration of some 
of their more important details, we shall find 
parallelisms, we believe, which, if not strict an- 
alogies, are illustrations in point. One such 
occurs, for example, in connection with the ques- 
tion of order. So far as men have hitherto 
traced the succession of existence in the days that 
are past, they believe themselves to have es- 
tablished a remarkable general rule in regard to 
this point. In the same line of existence, the 
lower form, though not the less perfect, has always 
preceded the higher. That being so, is it not at 
least worthy of notice, that in the predicted genesis 
of the “ new man” also, this is to be emphatically 
the rule? “ Howbeit, that is not first which is 
spiritual, but that which is natural; and a/ter- 
wards that which is spiritual.” 

We find another illustration, in the next place, 
on the question of mode. When endeavouring 
at first to take a general view of the great ladder of 
being so far as ordinarily known to our senses, we 
saw that the one principle pervading all its changes 
was the simple principle of addition. Nothing 
was subtracted, much was added, all the way up. 
That being so, it is surely a fact to be marked that 
an apparent illustration of the same principle is to 
be found in the teaching of Scripture concerning 
the nature of that higher life which she bids us 


NTO EE 


eee wt ne 


Christ and Creation. 


27 


re 


expect on this earth. In what way, according to 
her, is that highest visible life of the future to differ 
from the highest existing at present? As that does 
in turn from the kind of life immediately below it, 
and as every lower kind also does in turn from that 
immediately below it, viz., in the way of addition 
alone. This is true, on the one hand, of the inner 
faculties of this new species of man. ‘These be 
they,” it is written of some (see Jude 19, R.V., 
margin), “who separate themselves, natural, not 
having the Spirit.” In other words, it is this 
addition of “having the Spirit,” which differentiates 


the “spiritual” from the “natural ” so far as the 


inner man is concerned. Much the same also 
is true, on the other hand, of the outward 
framework as well. When the apostle in 2 Cor. 
y. 1-4, speaks of this body of the future under 
the figure of a dwelling, and declares for himself 
how greatly he longs to enter on the possession 
thereof, he is careful to show us that he looks for 
it only in the way we have named. “ Not for that 
we would be unclothed, but clothed upon ;”—-so it 
is that he: writes (2 Cor. v. 4). 
_ We may extend our comparison also to the 
nature of the addition to which this differentiation 
is due. We have seen that the principal inward 
advantages of man as he is over the best of the 
animals below him, lie in the direction of his 


vastly superior power of reasoning, end of appreci- | 


The 

highest life 
of the future 
differs from 
the highest 
life of the 
present in 
the way of 
addition 
alone. 


The 
principle of 
addition in 
relation to 
the future 
body. 


The nature 

of the 

addition 

to which 

the differ- 

entiation is 
ue, 


28 


Christ and Creation. 


SS Senses 


The 
inward 
advantages 
which 
make the 


snow wnat’. 


superior to 
the “old.” 


The 
spiritual 
and the 
natural 
mind, 


The 
interval 
between 
them 


ating the “right.” If these things exist at all in 
the members of the merely animal world, it is in 
a rudimentary form at the best. It is the com- 
parative perfection of these faculties in man 
which lifts him up so far above them. Just so 
is it, also, according to the teaching of Serip- 
ture, of those inward advantages which make the 
’ superior to the “old.” These also 
are said to depend on a difference of a precisely 
similar kind. As we have seen, it is by the 
enlightening of the dark, by the awakening of the 
dormant, by the quickening of that which was 
lifeless before, that the spiritual mind supplants 
the natural, and becomes able to “understand the 
things of the Spirit.” There is the difference 
which gives the “new man” of Scripture his great 
present advantage over the old. In both cases, 
in short—the case of the natural man compared 
with the animals, and the cause of the spiritual 
man compared with the natural—the interval 
between the higher and lower is described as 
of transcendent magnitude and significance, and 
yet is not an abyss. 

Whether we are taught as much as this with 
regard to man’s outward framework as well, is not 
so easy to see; but we are clearly taught that which 
is not out of keeping with such an idea. The body 
of man, as men are now, is said to possess one 
conspicuous advantage over all merely animal 


“new man’ 


Christ and Creation. 


29 


nen ss 


bodies now in existence, in its greatly superior 
power of adaptation to external influences of all 
sorts. The human body can not only sustain life, 
when exposed to changes which are simply de- 
structive to others, but even enjoy it too in a 
If we suppose this adaptability in- 
creased to such a degree—and there are reasons 
for believing this not to be so very difficult a 
thing to aecomplish—as to make the body of 
man superior to all the external influences to 
which it will ever be exposed, it is clear that 
in that case his body would be possessed of a 
practical immortality such as that of which we 
are told. Nor would such a transformation be 
so wholly unexampled in magnitude as might 
appear at first sight. The original transition, 
e.g., trom inanimate to animate existence, does 
not appear, to our minds, to be very much 
less. Of the two things, indeed, there seems a 
distinctly greater change in causing life to begin 
than in causing it to advance. On this part of 
the subject, therefore, if our two authorities do not 
exactly appear to harmonize, they are not at 
variance, at the worst. A point this, in the cir- 
cumstances surrounding them, not unworthy of 
note. 

We come next to the more debateable question 
of the origin of new types. No doubt on this 
point the really established conclusions of science 


measure. 


The 
advantage 
of the 
human 
body over 
other 
animal 
bodies. 


What the 


‘human 


body might 
be made, 


The trans- 
formation 
not wholly 
unex- 
ampled. 


To cause 
life to 
begin 
greater 
than to 
cause it te 
advance. 


The 
origin of 
new types, 


30 


Christ and Creation. 


New types 
seem 

sometimes 
to appear. 


Their 
ultimate 
permanence 
uncertain. 


New 4 
* varieties”? 
do appear. 


They take 
their origin 
from one 
centre. 


The 

** copper 
beech” a 
familiar 
example. 


In the field of 
nature, as it lies before us at present, we do some- 
times discover, it is true, what look like examples 
of the new appearance of types. But we cannot at 
present speak positively as to the ultimate perman- 
ence of those forms. 


have not much to say to us yet. 


Some such, on the contrary, 
as a matter of fact, have already ceased to exist. 
The “gourd” which was found to appear in the 
one night, disappeared in the next. Still, it is a 
fact to be dealt with, that certain new “ varieties ” 
of formation—so called in order to distinguish 
them from those forms of more assured character 
and stability, to which the name of “ species”? is 
given—do now occasionally make their appearance 
(sometimes with, and sometimes without the inter- 
ference of man) on the great arena of life. And 
it is also a fact which has to be dealt with, that a 
large majority of the “varieties” in question have 
been found by observation to take their origin, not 
from many centres, but one. The “copper beech” 
of our ornamental plantations is a familiar, and, 
therefore, a suitable instance in point. This pecu- 
liar description of beech a few years ago was wholly 
unknown in the world. It now exists as a distinct 
“variety” in all parts of the land. It is also a 
“variety,” the exact dispersion and origin of which 
—to a certain extent—can be easily traced; the 
individual specimen, it is said, being still in exist- 
ence, which first of all, as it were, gave the start 


Christ and Creation. 


31 


a a 


to the fashion in question. And, be that as it 
may, there is no manner of doubt that the records 
of horticulture and of domesticated animal life, 
abound with instances of a similar kind. N othing 
is more common, in fact, than for what are known 


Similar 
instances 
abound 

in the 
records of 
horticulture 
and animal 
life. 


as “varieties” to originate in this manner, What- _ 


ever their destiny may be, this is how they began. 
The diversity which one specimen originated, other 
connected specimens afterwards followed. Thus 
the group started ; thus it has grown. 

Is there anything similar in regard to that new 
race or “group” in the life-history of mankind, 
of which we are told in the Scripture? That 
there are many points of strong dissimilarity in 
regard to this case, is visible of course at a glance. 
But this does not in any way militate against 
the possibility of likeness in it in other respects. 
As a matter of fact, indeed, so far as_ that 
unicentral mode of appearance is concerned to 
which alone we are now referring, no degree of 
resemblance could very well be more express and 
complete. Consider, e.g., how distinctly this case of 
new nature, in both departments, is described as 
originating with One. Also, how distinctly we are 
told of all those persons who now possess it in 
part, and are hereafter to possess it in full, that all 
this is only in consequence of their connection with, 
and also after the pattern of One! There are few 
things, in fact, of which revelation tells us with 


The new 
se group ” 
in the 
history of 
mankind, 


The 
unicentral 
mode of 
appearance, 


32 


Scriptural 
descriptions 
of the 
inward 
trans- 
formation 
and of the 
future 
outward 
change, 


The new 
66 group b} ] 
made up 
of those 
who have 
undergone 
the double 
change. 


The many 
spring from 
© one, 


Christ and Creation. 


greater plamness of speech. To be _ practical 
“imitators of Christ,’ on the one hand, to have 
the “mind which was in Christ Jesus,” to be 
“conformed” to Him in spirit and feeling, these 
are its descriptions of that inward transformation 
which changes the “old man” to the “new.” On 
the other hand, to “bear the image of the heavenly” 
One in outward frame and appearance as well, 
and to have these ‘bodies of humiliation conformed 
unto the likeness of His body of glory,” when we 
“see Him” at last “as He is,” is the description 
it gives of the other and future part of the change. 
Add to which, as it is only of those thus doubly 
changed, on the one hand, so is it expressly of all 
of such, on the other hand, that this new race is 
made up. So far, therefore, as concerns that one 
point on which alone we are dwelling, what we 
are taught to believe of this race is what we have 
seen illustrated also amongst ‘‘the trees of the field,” 
viz., the many springing from one! No sensible 
person will despise this comparison because of the 
vast interval it embraces. The whole experience 
of science rather teaches us to do the reverse. 
The simpler the nature of a principle, and the 
wider its grasp, the stronger—so far—the pro- 
bability of its truth. 
** The very law which moulds a tear, 
And bids it trickle from its source, 


That law preserves the earth a sphere, 
And guides the planets in their course. 


a ee one 


_ Christ and Creation. 


33 


TL eee eStats antes isnstsaneietednesasssasnpsnstnseniviunsotenec np 


Another thing, also, in this illustration, deserves 
tu be weighed. The whole existing Adamic race 
is traced in the Bible to an origin of this kind. 
‘Adam begat a son in his own likeness, after his 
image.” Succeeding “Adams” (so to call them) 
by doing the same have made the race what it is. 
Such, m brief, in regard to this matter, is the 
Scriptural story. Its special importance in our 
present inquiry lies in the fact of its being em- 


ployed by the Bible itself in illustration of the 


genesis of the new race of mankind. This is done 
indirectly—amongst other things—when Christ, as 
the Head of this higher and later race, is called 
the “last Adam” or “second Man.” This is done 
directly, when it is said of those who are destined 
to belong to that race, that, as they have “borne 
the image of the earthy,” #.¢., of Adam, so they 
are to bear “the image of the heavenly,” i.e, of 
Christ. A certain amount of resemblance, in fact, 
seems to be predicated in the Bible respecting the 
very processes employed in bringing these issues 
about. The great general scientific principle of 
“like begets like,”’—the same principle which is 
recognized in the language of Scripture when it 
describes all living existence as being “ after its 
kind”—is described as lying at the foundation of 
both. In other words, as it is by “ generation ” 
that all natural men inherit the image of the 


“first,” so it is by “regeneration” both of spirit 
D 


The origin 
of the 
Adamic 
race, 


Christ the 
“last 
Adam” or 
the ** second 
Man.” 


The new 

fT? group ” 
who bore 
“the image 
of the 


of the 
heavenly.” 


The 

ah neha 
principle 

of “like 
begetting 
like”? the 
foundation 
of both. 
The “image 
of the 
earthy ” 
comes by 
generation, 
the ‘‘ image 
of the 


by 
generahion 


o4 


Christ and Creation. 


The 
parallelism 
not to be 
Seige too 
ar. 


Yet it is 
not without 
weig. 


The general 
prevalence 
of this or 
that order 
of life in 
given ages 
may be 
learnt, but 
not the 
date of its 
rise. 


and body that all spiritual men are to bear 
finally that of the “second.” This is not a 
parallelism—it may be—to be pressed very far. 
But it is still less to be slighted. For on the 
one hand, to a certain extent, it compares the 
genesis of the “new man” with that of the old. 
On the other hand, it compares the genesis of 
the natural man with that of “the trees of the 
field.” In a certain way, therefore, it at least 
seems to bridge over that vast interval between 
the first of these and the last, of which we have 
spoken; and gives express Scriptural sanction, 
and therefore still greater significance to the 
illustration just traced. 

Connected with it we may trace another which 
is also-not without weight. Science has always 
found it difficult to determine exactly the geo- 
logical time of the first appearance of types, even 
in a relative way. On few points, indeed, are 
the characters employed by that great book of 
stone which lies at our feet more difficult to de- 
cipher. Something they sometimes tell us, no 
doubt, as to the general prevalence of this or that 
order of life in this or that age of the past. But 
it is very rarely that they tell us as much respecting 
the exact date of its rise. The footprints, as it 
were, of the main body of processionists are often 
discernible enough to our gaze. But it is not so 
often that we find reliable indications of those of 


Christ and Creation. 


35 


the vanguard as well. Over and over again, on 
the contrary, has the experience of more recent 
researches disproved on this point what previous 
inquirers had regarded as proved. In all such 
cases, therefore, it would seem to be obvious that 
the processions 1m question did not begin with very 
much show. ‘That can hardly have been very 
marked or conspicuous at the time of its occurrence 
which has only left such scant traces behind. We 
believe, indeed, that this is what is generally held 
with regard to this point. What is true of in- 
dividual, is believed to be true also of collective 
life, asarule. It seldom, at starting, makes much 
noise in the world. 

Are we not taught the same also, in the same 


general way, on the other side of our quest? In ‘ 


a certain sense that new and glorious “ order of 
life,” that illustrious “kingdom of God,” the full 
development of which, according to Scripture, is 
reserved for the future, has already begun. It is 
a long time now since the original Exemplar or 
Leader of this “order of life” appeared on the earth. 
Ever since then, however, according to Scripture, a 
continual though far from universal process of con- 
forming men inwardly to that same pattern has been 
going on in this world. Yet how true it is further 
—and that in both cases—that it has not been “with 
observation ” that this “kingdom of God” has so 
far appeared. ‘This is plain, on the one hand, of 


The 
entrance 

of the 
orders of 
life without 
show. 


Life at 
starting 
makes 
little noise, 


Ita 
appearance 
without 
observation, 


36 


The first — 
appearance 
of the last 


few and in- 


adequately 
appreciated. 


The 
resurrection 
of Christ 

a mere 
report to 
all but a 
few. 


The great 
change in 
individual 
men un- 

obtrusive, 


Little 
known of 
the men of 
the future 
now among 
us, 


Christ and Creation. 


that beginning of all, the first appearance of the 
last Adam Himself! Who were there at the time 
among the children of the first Adam that were 
aware of that fact? And even among those very 
few who did know of the fact, who. possessed 
anything like an adequate idea of its significance 
and importance ? 

Much the same was true also of that great 
second stage in this world-affecting process which 
took place when this glorious second Adam was 
raised again from the dead; and so was born a 
second time, as it were (Rev. i. 5). Except toa 
very few, at that time, that most momentous of 
earthly occurrences was nothing more than a 
thing of report. Nor are things very different, as a 
matter of observation, with all those individual cases 
of change of heart and of gradual conformity to 
the spiritual likeness of Christ, which we believe to 
be so many scattered yet united steps towards the 
consummation in view. How very little, if any- 
thing, is to be seen outwardly and at the time, of 
such inward transitions as these. “The wind 
bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the 
sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, 
and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born 
of the Spirit.” And how little is known, therefore, 
of the actual existence among us of that whole 
family or class of men of the future, to which 
these changed persons belong. So hidden a factor 


Rg pa anata ETF + 


ce te 


Christ and Creation. 


are they, so comparatively unknown an ingredient, 
so unsuspected a power, as things are, in the world! 
Nor does it seem intended indeed, according to 
Scripture, that things should be otherwise with them 
in this respect, until that future time which is there- 
fore spoken of as being their ‘ manifestation ’ 
(Rom. viii 19); and in regard to which, also, it 
is so emphatically said of them, that they are 
“then to shine forth” (Matt. xiii. 43). It would 
almost seem, in short, as though their present 
obscurity was intended to be in exact proportion to 
the future brightness of their lot. What impos- 
sibility of concealment then! What equal diffi- 
culty of discernment now! What a “trumpet” 
then! What silence now! 

‘One other point follows in connection with the 
first appearance of types. Such generally un- 
obtrusive arrivals could hardly have been productive 
of any very great degree of visible disturbance in 
the general features of the particular life-scape in 
which they appeared. Not Alexander himself could 
fight many battles till he had left his cradle behind. 
We are not without positive evidence, indeed, of a 
condition of things which gives strong support to 
this view ; positive evidence, that is to say, of the 
simultaneous existence on the arena of life of both 
the new dynasty and the old, something the same 
(shall we say?) as when the msing sun is seen 
facing the departing full moon. In some cases, in 


sia and 
uture lot. 


Only little 
disturbance 
caused by 
these un= 
obtrusive 
arrivals, 


The co- 
existence 
of the 
new and 
the old, 


38 


Pre-cereal 
lants 
iving by 

the side of 

cereals, 


New and 
old forms 
of marine 
life. 


Obliteration 


Scripture 
teaching on 
this point 
respecting 
the new 
race, 


The older 
description 
of life 
little 
disturbed 
as yet. 


Both to 
exist till 
the end of 
the age, 


Christ and Creation. 


fact, we see that the older form has not even yet 
been so far disturbed as to give way to the new. 
It is certain, e.g., that many descriptions of plants 
which were flourishing in the world before the 
introduction of the cereals are living still by their 
side. And it is equally certain, we believe, that 
forms of marine life are now in existence which 
cannot be distinguished from certain other forms 
which are known to have inhabited some of the 
earliest oceans of which any record is left. Ob- 
literation of type, in a word, in the days of the 
past has been usually slow. 

Does not Scripture also teach us the same 
respecting the new race of mankind? In a certain 
sense, aS we have seen, this race has already 
begun. Many, at any rate, of those “copies” of 
the original “ pattern” which are to make up that 
race at the last, are in a more or less forward 
state of preparation at this moment. As yet, 
however, there has been no serious disturbance, 
In consequence, in the general current of the older 
description of life. Neither are we to expect it, 
in fact, according to Scripture, during the present 
order of things. On the contrary, of “both” 
descriptions of life, as we see them now in the 
“field”’ of this “world,” it is written expressly 
that they are to “grow together” until the “end” 
of this “age.” Nor is it quite clear from the 
Bible, even of that ‘‘end” of so much, that it is 


Christ and Creation. 


39 


also to involve the total cessation of the present 
race of mankind. ( 
This particular application of the principle before 


us must be taken, of course, for what it is worth. 


But the general fact that in the relative experience 
of the church and the world Scripture teaches 
us to see an old race existing by the side of a new 


‘one which is ultimately much to surpass it, seems 


to be beyond the reach of dispute. Here also we 
find the obliteration of type not by any means 
swift. 

We come, lastly, to the very momentous question 
of cause. Doubtful indeed as may be the value of 
certain modern hypotheses which aspire to account 
for the amazing variety and multiplicity of life on 
this earth by merely natural laws, one of the 
principles embodied in them seems to be certain 
enough. The action of ‘ environment” on that 
which it environs is undoubted and great. Put 
into other phraseology, this statement may not 
be quite so much of a discovery as some of its 
prophets seem to imagine; but it is none the less 
sure. That “man,” at any rate, is to a large extent 
the creature of “ circumstances,” is what we have 
long known to be true. That the creatures which 
are below him in all other respects are not above 
him in this, seems to follow of course. Nor can it 
be doubted in fact, touching all the things that we 


Scripture 

teaching as 
to the co- 
existence . 
of the two 
races in- 

disputable, 


The 
question of 
cause. 


The 
action of 
environ= 
ment, 


The 
influence 
of circum- 
stances 
on man. 


see (at any rate) that changes in environment and 


40 


The 
proximate 
causes 

to which 
the changes 
are due. 


The 
necessity 


Observation 
suggests the 
operation 

of will.” 


The 
testimony 
of Scripture. 


The 
exertion 

of will 
caused the 
waters to 
bring forth, 
etc. 


Christ and Creation. 


outward surroundings—changes in “ circumstance, 
that is to say—have generally been the precursors 
of changes in that which was surrounded thereby. 
But this, it is evident, is only the beginning, and 
not the end of the matter. This does not tell us 
to what remoter causes these first-named external 
changes were due; still less to what still remoter 
causes those were due in their turn; nor would it 
mend matters very much, it is clear, if it did. No 
possible number of successive answers of this sort 
can exhaust the possibilities of the case. No 
matter how numerous these transmitted energies 
may be, the last of them will point us to the 
absolute necessity of an wntransmitted one to begin. 
This is the conclusion to which we are brought by 
our own researches and reason. ‘This is how 
observation suggests to us—how it almost reveals 
to us—the operation of “will.” 

How actual Revelation speaks on the subject it 
can hardly be necessary to point out. It was a 
power wholly outside of man, according to it, 
which formed man at first out of the dust of 
the earth, and which afterwards breathed “ into 
his nostrils” that “breath of life” which made 
him ‘‘a living soul.” It was a similar power 
from outside, also, according to it—a like exertion 
of will—a corresponding word of command— 
which caused the earth and the waters to “bring 
forth” the lower life of the beasts, and the 


4% 


* > tie | 
nl 


_— 
eas 


Christ. and Creation. 


fishes, and the fowls of the air, on the one hand ; 
together with the still lower life, on the other 
hand, of the grass and the herbs and the trees 
of the field. Nor is the case different in regard 
to that higher life of which we have now been 
speaking so much. Where are we to look for the 
force which changes the carnal into the spiritual ; 
the rudimentary into the perfect; the mortal into 
the immortal ; comparative death into superlative 
life? Not to anything already acting, or even al- 
ready existing within. Not to any aspiration that 
comes from below, but to a command that comes 
from above. This is the uniform teaching of Holy 
Scripture respecting the whole of this change. 


It is by the presentation and special application 


of truth to the mind of the natural man, eg., 
that the higher life of his inward nature is 
described as brought into being (John xvu. 17; 
James i. 18). In other words, those persons who 
become the subjects of this unobtrusive but mighty 
change are described to us sometimes as being 
“born of the Spirit” or “born from above” 
(John ii. 8-8); sometimes as “born again by the 
word” (1 Pet. i. 23); and sometimes, with marked 
reference to both the negative and positive sides 
of the subject, as “born not of blood, nor of the 
will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of 
God” (John i. 12). Similar to this also is the 


language employed in the corresponding case of | 


41 


The higher 
life due to 
the same 
cause. 


@ 

higher life 

engendered 
the 

presentation 

an 

application 

of truth 

to the mind, 


42 


The new 
bith of 
the body. 


The final 
change. 


The 
agreement 
so far of 
observation 
and 
revelation. 


Scripture 
and Science 
not hope- 
lessly at 
variance, 


Christ and Creation. 


the new birth of the body. That also is spoken 
of, negatively, on the one hand, as a “house noé 
made with hands ;” and, positively, on the other, as 
a ‘‘ building of God’”/2 Cor. v. 1, 2), a “ house from 
heaven,” something formed from without. And to 
this same effect, finally, the apostle virtually writes 
when he says on the same subject (1 Cor. xv. 52), 
that “we shall not all sleep, but we shall all de 
changed :”’ that passive form pointing to an active 
principle which is outside of ourselves. 

So many are the lines in which this “new 
pattern of life” is found walking in the steps of 
the old! 


99 


IV. 


THE Position so Far. 


On all the topics as yet discussed by us on the 
twofold plan proposed at the beginning, we hope 
it will be found, on review, that our two oracles 
have been in agreement. So far as they have gone, 
they have helped in every case to illustrate one 
another. 

Such a fact is one which appears, in every way, 


to be deserving of note. 


It is so, first, in itself. If Scripture and Science 
were so hopelessly at variance as some have as- 
serted, it would have been quite impossible to 
find any succession of correspondences between them. 

It is so, next, in regard to the number of the 


Christ and Creation. 


agreements in question. Roughly speaking, those Ts 


now adduced will hardly be less than some twenty 
in all. In a case such as this, which depends on 
examples, this is of very great weight. How 
many mattcrs of moment have been fully settled 
on the strength of very much fewer P 

The fact before us is also worthy of notice in 
regard to the question of kind. How exceedingly 
diversified is the character of the regions in which 
these cases of agreement occurred! We have 
found them behind and before; up and down; 
here and there, as it were! In the pages of 
history! In those of prophecy! Amongst the 
organized! Amongst the unorganized! In the 
“world” within us! In the world around us! 
In questions of matter! In questions of mind! 
In questions of morals! In higher realms still! 
All this makes their argumentative weight a 
hundredfold more than if we had discovered them 
all as it were within a few yards of each other. 


Once more, this succession of correspondences Th 


is worthy of note in regard to the question of 
source. Can any two sources of information less 
apparently likely to produce such correspondences, 
be easily named? It is not only, as we noticed 
at first, that Revelation and Observation re- 
spectively address themselves to wholly different 
and even widely-separated regions of thought, in 


the main. That is only half of the truth. 


e 
number of 
the 


agreements 
adduced. 


The variety 
of the 
agreements 
adduced, 


e 
unlikelihood 
of their 
sources. 


44 


The weight 
of the 


agreements, 


Their main 
witness 
therefore 
true. 


Christ the 
Crown of 
the Past 
and the 
Key of the 
Future, 


Christ and Creation. 


Another and equally important half is to be 
found in the fact, that, even when they do happen 
to have the same subject in common, it hardly 
appears, in their hands, in consequence of the 
different standpoints from which they approach it, 
the different fashions in which they handle it, 
and the different objects they have in view to be 
the same thing. The marvel is, therefore, in 
the instance before us, that we should so often 
have found the respective utterances of Scripture 
and. Science to be, as it were, in ‘“ conjunction ”’; 
and, when thus in conjunction, instead of eclipsing, 
to have so illuminated each other. 
not easy, as a question of evidence, to give too 
much weight to this fact. 
stances of agreement, on so many different points, 
should be found on the part of two witnesses so 
singularly independent that they only rarely have 
any experiences in common, speaks volumes for 
both. | 

And therefore, of course, for that which we 
may speak of as their common result. In such 
circumstances we cannot reasonably doubt but that 


It really is 


That so many in- 


Christ 1s indeed, as 
they teach us, on the one hand, the Crown of the 
Past! Christ is indeed, as they teach us, on the 
other hand, the Key of the Future! 
authorities, and all our researches—on these points 


their main witness is true. 


Both our 


—are at one. 


Christ and Creation. 


45 


V. 
Curist tHE AvuTHOR oF ALL. 


Tuts conclusion, however, must not be regarded 
as the conclusion of all. Rather, from one point 
of view, it is only the groundwork of a still further 
inquiry. If Christ be all this, He may be very 
much more. If He stands in these relations, He 
may stand in still higher ones, to the things that 
are seen. Our two authorities having brought us, 
as it were, to the very verge of this question, we 
are bound to see whether they can help us to settle 
it too. 

To see this, on the one side, let us revert again 
to the vital question of “cause.” That the proxi- 
mate cause of all change of type is in something 
outside; and that the ultimate cause, therefore, 
however remote, must be in that outward force we 
call * will,” we have already agreed. What we 
would ask now is, whether it is not possible for 
us to see some distance beyond. The notion of 
“will” seems to carry with it the notion also of 
person. Every act of volition assumes an actor— 
if so we may speak. It is in this direction, ac- 
cordingly, that we would now endeavour to look. 
Where are we to seek for the “actor” of that 


A further 
inquiry. 


‘“¢ Will”’ the 
ultimate 
cause of 
change of 
type. 


“Will” 
involves 
personality. 


special “act of volition” to which our thoughts «< {in 


have been turned ? 
this “‘new man” is caused to exist ? 


By whose “will” is it that 


46 


The onl 
conceivable 


e I 
caelldate 
for the 
position is 
Christ. 


What 

the skill of 
man can do 
in this line, 


What 

the power 
of Christ 
may be 
expected to 
do. 


Christ and Creation. 


If the “actor” in question is to be sought in 
this world—and that “observation” of man to 
which we are now referring is confined to this 
world as a rule—there is but one reply, of course, 
to be given. The only conceivable earthly candi- 
date for such a position is to be found in the 
person of Christ. On this negative side there does 
not exist even a cranny for doubt. 

Even on the positive side also there are not 
wanting phenomena which look like indications this 
way. What the skill of man can accomplish in this 
connection by the judicious use of certain energies 
which he finds in action both around and within 
him, we have already considered. To a certain 
extent he is thereby enabled to modify “life.” To 
a certain extent, indeed—though only it appears in 
combination with great uncertainty both of result 
and duration—it is not impossible for him some- 
times to cause new successions of life to come into 
being. This is one of the many ways in which he 
excels in action, as he excels in endowment, the 
rest of the animal world. That which they are 
unable even to think of, he is able to do. 

What is the natural inference, therefore, when 
we compare him, in this respect, with one so much 
above him as Christ? Evidently that this greater 
One should have the power of accomplishing very 
much more in this line. In a general way, indeed, 
we cannot reasonably doubt this being truly the 


Christ and Creation. 


case. The matter concerned is hardly one in 
which there might be a lack of superiority on the 
part of Christ without hurt. Could there be su- 
premacy at all, in fact, if there were no supremacy 
in so (literally) vital a matter ? 

Ts it not clear also, uf we think of it, that this is 
just the kind of superiority which befits the position 
of Christ? Let it be granted, as no doubt it must 
be, that the interval involved in this comparison is 
something enormous. To direct the development 
of a new variety of rose or pigeon, ¢g,, 18 one 
thing. To bring into being such a world of “new 
men” as the Scripture speaks of, is prodigiously 
more. It may even be true—it most probably is 
—that so enormous a degree of difference in result 
points to corresponding difference of at least equal 
magnitude in manner of working as well. Yet 
even this, it must be evident, by no means destroys 
the resemblance spoken of, so far as it goes. How- 
ever different the two operations may be in dimen- 
sions, their directions are alike. However diverse 
also their manner and purpose, their intrinsic 
natureisone. What both end in, is the appearance 
of that which was not in appearance before. It 
would seem, therefore, on the whole that we are 
directed with double force to our present inference 
on this matter. The “resemblance” spoken of 
exactly agrees with the fact that Christ Himself 


47 


The 

kind of 
superiority 
implied 
befits the 
position of 
Christ. 


An 
enormous 
difference. 


A real 
resem-= 
blance 


What the 
resemblance 
agrees 
with. 


was aman. The “difference” detected equally . 


48 


What the 
difference 
agrees with, 


What their 
combination 
implies. 


Christ as the 
actual 
Originator 
of the 
highest, 

the 

possible 
Author of 
all. 


Christ and Creation. 


agrees with the fact that He was so much the 
highest of men! On the one hand, a merely 
subordinate change, brought about with very un- 
certain workmanship, and lasting (apparently) only 
a limited time; that sums up, in this direction, the 
whole working of man. On the other hand, an 
amazingly greater transformation, brought about 
with the certainty of a Master hand, and never 
destined to come to an end; that is the other work, 
on this line, into which we examine. Who more 
fitting than “the Son of Man” to be its author 
and cause ? 

This probability carries with it the possibility 
of wider work yet. Whatever the power which 
accomplished the greater, it cannot be unequal to 
doing the less. Nothing, in fact, that has ever yet 
been accomplished in this cosmos of ours, can be 
of a nature to be beyond the reach of that power! 
This is abundantly plain. If we have really found 
in Christ the actual Originator of the highest, it 
also follows, of course, that we have found in Him 
the possible Author of all/ 

And therefore—-of course, also—we have found 
in Him all that this means! All it means, how- 
ever vast! however transcendent! Even if it 
involves ascribing to Him, as no doubt it does, 
the very Highest of Names! All this is virtually 
admitted when we admit His competency to be 
the Author of all! 


Christ and Creation. 


What Revelation says to us on this subject is so 
very explicit that we need not dwell on it much. 

It is by the “voice” of Christ Himself, e.y., 
as addressed to men “now” (John v. 25), that 
their spirits are described in Scripture as being 
caused to “live” in His sight. And it is to 


be by means of that “voice” also, addressed 


to them hereafter (John v. 28), that the “ resur- 
rection of life,” the change of the body, is to be- 
come theirs. To the same effect, also, we read of 
the one change, on the one hand, “ Awake thou 
that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ 
shall give thee light” (Eph. v. 14); and, on the 
other, that ‘we are His (¢.e., God’s) workmanship, 
created anew in Christ Jesus unto good works ” 
(Eph. 11.10). To the same effect do we read, also 
(of the other change), in such a declaration as this: 
“Tf the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from 
the dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ 
from the dead shall also quicken your mortal 
bodies, by His Spirit that dwelleth in you” (Rom. 
vil. 11.) Or, in such another as this: “He (that 
is, Christ) shall change our vile body, that it may 
be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according 
to the working whereby He is able even to subdue 
all things to Himself” (Phil. m1. 21). Whatever 
is done in this way, in short, Revelation teaches us 
to regard as done in some way by Himself. Other 
names may be sometimes included. His is never 
E 


49 


The 
testimony 
of Scripture, 


Both 
resurrection 
and re- 
generation} 
ascribed to 
Christ, 


The one 

the conse- 
quence of 
the other 


50 


No “new 
man”? 


either in _ 


body or 
spirit 
except by 
Christ’s 
power. 


All things 
created by 
Christ. 


All things 
consist by 
Christ. 


Observation 


and 
revelation 
bring us 
thus to 
see Christ 
as the 
Creator 
of all. 


Christ and Creation. 


left out. According to Scripture, in short, there 
is no “new man”—either in body or in spirit— 
except by His power. 

Equally plain are the declarations of Scripture 
respecting the origin of all the rest of creation. 
Sometimes we are told, eg., that God “created 
all things by Jesus Christ;” sometimes, that 
“by Him God made the [ages, or] worlds” 
(Heb. 1. 2); sometimes, “that all things were 
made by Him,” and that “without Him was not 
anything made that was made” (John i. 8); some- 
times, that “all things were created by Him and 
for Him” (Col. i. 16); and sometimes, finally, 
that “ by Him all things consist ”’ (Col. i. 17), and 
that He it is, who, seated now at the right hand 
of the throne, “ upholdeth all things by the word 
of His power” (Heb. i. 2). 

The general issue, therefore, of this brief further 
inquiry is like that arrived at before. Observation 
and Revelation had already brought us so far that 
little was required in order to take us a long dis- 
tance beyond. The whole of that little, these two 
authorities have now effectually done. The one by 
its gestures, and the other by its speech, have con- 
ducted us on till we see Christ presented to us as 
the Creator of all! 


i 
| 


: 
i 
: 


= 


Christ and Creation. 


51 


a 


PAA L 
Tue Postrion 1n Fut. 


WE may at last fully see, therefore, in the con- 
nection before us, the position of Christ. 

We see, in the first place, that His relation to 
creation is not a simple one, but highly complex. 

To a certain extent, for example, it is one of 
identification with it. Being man, Christ is what 
man is, viz., akin to all that is made. 

On the ‘ther hand, it is also one of vast supe- 

riority to it, Even in the fact of having Himself 
furnished the highest example of the present race 
of mankind, Christ is above all that we see. Much 
more is He so in having become, in His own 
person, the beginning and model of that higher 
_ race which is to appear by-and-by on the earth. 
- And most of all is He so, of course, in being the 
actual Creator as well of that race as of all it 
excels, 
It follows, therefore, of the relation in question 
-hat it is something altogether unique. No other 
Name exists in regard to which ai these things 
san be said! 

It also follows, of the relation in question, that 
it is of a peculiarly intimate kind. Christ is at 
once the Fellow-creature and also the Creator of 
all that is made. Only one thing closer than these 
_ combined relationships can be even conceived. 


The full 
position 
of Christ. 


Christ akin 
to all that 
is made, 


Christ above 
all that is 
made, 


The 
consequent 
uniqueness 
of His 
relation 

to creation 


The 
peculiar 
closeness of 
its intimacy, 


52 Christ and Creation. 


universality It follows, yet again, of the relation in question, 
fnfinence, that it has the widest possible scope. It may be 
said, in fact, to be the keystone of the whole arch 
ot existence. It is that which embraces, that 
which completes, that which unifies all. The seen 
and the unseen, the past and the future, the idea 


of development and that of creation, the discoveries 


of men and the revelation of God, are shown by it~ 


to be so many parts of onesymmetrical whole. In 
a word, the earliest and the latest, the highest and 
the lowest, the furthest and the nearest, are all 
what they are because of the impress on them of 
their relation to Christ. As the Psalmist says, in 
another connection, “ there is nothing hid from its 


heat.” 
whe quent 0d it follows, finally, therefore, that all 
madsduacy systems of knowledge must be miserably inadequate 


ti f bs . e : ° . 
knowledge Which leave this point out. A circulating system 


it out. without a heart, a respiratory system with nothing 
to breathe, the solar system deprived of its sun, 
are none of them so deficient as is the conception 
of the cosmos without Christ. Nothing but frag- 
ments of knowledge can be obtained by us when 
when we try to study it so. Nothing, therefore, 
but what hides from us far more than it shows. 
Nothing, in short, but what conveys to us more 
error than truth ! 


Christ and Creation. 


VIL. 
THE Conciusion oF ALL. 


A CORROBORATIVE and supplemental word may 
be added, in conclusion, from a different region of 
thought. Instead of symptoms of advance, we have 
seen that sometimes symptoms of retrogression are 
discoverable in the creation around us. Those 
animals in caves, referred to before, which possess 
something of the form, but none of the power of 
organs of vision, appear to be cases in point. Their 
sightless eyes seem the survivals, and so the indices 
of a former condition of things ; the marks, as it 
were, which point out to us the former height of 
the tide. Similar instances are to be found, in re- 
gard to the physical nature of man, in those de- 
formed and stunted specimens of men which inhabit 
and infest the more crowded parts of some of our 
cities. And similar instances, in regard to their 
moral and mental endowments, in those races of 
men which are said to prefer falsehood to truth, even 
as a matter of taste. Compared with races which 
agree in treating deceit as both a folly and a dis- 
honour, such races appear evidently to have gone 
down in the scale. A strong argument for this view 
of the case appears in the fact that under proper 
influences they can be more or less elevated there- 
from ; which is exactly parallel with what we find 
to be true of certain domesticated races of animals 


53 


Symptoms 
of retro- 
gression in 
creation. 


Deformed 
and stunted 
specimens 
of men. 


Mentally 
and morally 
depraved 
specimens, 


The 
possible 
elevation 
of such 
people. 


Christ and Creation. 


Our race 
a fallen 
one. 


Also a 
condemned 
one, and 80 
in double 
need. 


Deliverance 
from con- 
demnation. 


which have been allowed to run wild. We can 
do with such races what we can never do with 
those that have always been wild. 

These considerations may at least help to prepare 
us for hearing what Revelation has to say to us 
on the point under discussion. For hearing, for 
example, that the whole of our race is a fallen one. 
Fallen physically, and so subject to death. Fallen 
mentally, having the “understanding darkened.” 
Fallen morally, and therefore standing in need of 
an outward law or command. Also, in regard to 
a still higher aspect of the question, they will at 


least prepare us for being told that spiritually 


speaking our race has lost the very conception of 
what was enjoyed by it once. 

These lamentable evils involve necessarily other 
evils as great. In other words, besides being 
degraded, we are also condemned. Dark indeed, 
therefore, in both respects, are the natural pros- 
pects of men. The “good tidings” themselves 
begin their message by describing them so. As to 
our condition, they begin by telling us that we are 
“already condemned.” As to our nature, they 
begin by telling us that it requires “ creating” anew. 

What has been and is to be done for us in 
the way of elevation and renewal we have al- 
ready considered in part. What has been done 
and is doing in the way of delivering us from 
condemnation has not been spoken of yet; and 


Christ and Creation. 


5d 


is indeed far too vast a subject to be fully dis- 
eussed in this place. But we may at least note 
here that Scripture always speaks of it as a work 
of such magnitude that, compared with it, even 
that of creation is small; and at the same time, 
also, as a work of such necessity that even that 
of renewal requires its accomplishment first. No 
extremer necessity, in short, is known to men, 
according to faith. Neither is there any greater 
enterprize than that of supplying it, according to 
faith. Here, in fact, is the “mystery,” for the re- 
vealing of which, according to it, Revelation is given. 

The relation of Christ to this work of works 
is at once the same as that which was shown us 
elsewhere, yet widely different too. The same in 
regard to the unquestioned supremacy both of His 
position and power. As in creation, so in re- 
demption, nothing is done without Him. He is the 
Saviour, the Mediator, the Redeemer of man. On 
the other hand, the relation of Christ to redemption 
is entirely different in regard to the manner in 
which He carries it out. What He doesin the one 
case by the exercise of His will, He is described as 
only achieving in the other by the deep humiliation 
of His Person. In the one, He is at the summit 
of all; in the other, for a season at least, at its 
foot. There, in the place of the King; here, in 
that of the criminal. There, bestowing life ; here, 
yielding it up. In the one case, in a word, the 


Its 
magnitude 
d 


an 
necessity. 


The place of 
Christ in 
redemption. 


In what 
respects 
similar to 
His place it 
regener- 
ation. 


In what 
respects 
different, 


56 


The twofold 
harmony of 
this wi 

our previous 
conclusions, 


Its 
harmony 
with the 
unity of 
His person, 
and the 
diversity 
of His 
work. 


The 
consequent 
Sum of all. 


Christ and Creation. 


Sceptre is His from the first; in the other, it 
does not become His till it has smitten Him first. 

We look upon all this as being strikingly in 
harmony with all that we have previously seen. 
In Nature and Time Christ is all in all by such a 
majestic and stepless advance as that which the 
heathen of old days ascribed to their gods. In 
Redemption and Grace Christ is all in all, by such 
a weary succession of blood-stained steps as only 
He could have trod. How well this agrees, on 
the one hand, with the unity of the Person! 
How equally well, on the other hand, with the 
diversity of the work! Can any redemption be 
brought about without cost? And is not such a 
cost amply sufficient even for such a redemption 

In their several ways, therefore, we see the 
final conclusions to which our combined authorities 
have now brought us. 

The Secret of Creation is to be found in the 
Person of Christ. The Secret of Redemption is 
to be found in His Cross. There is not much 
wisdom—if there be any at all—outside of these 
truths! “In Hui» are hid au the treasures of 
wisdom and knowledge.” 


THE 
_ PRESENT CONFLICT WITH UNBELIEF 
A SURVEY AND A FORECAST 


BY THE 


_ REV. JOHN KELLY 


Plutline of the Tract, 


—— OO 


THE Tract is intended to furnish a bird’s-eye view of the conflict, 
for the use of interested onlookers and workers among the people, 
who are unable to read books on its various branches. 

There are three divisions in the Tract: the first, some general 
aspects of the conflict ; the second, some special features of 4a 
the last, the issues of the conflict. 

The extent of the present conflict, the popularization of it, the 
spirit of the combatants, and their attitude towards the churches 
are treated in the first section. The doctrine of Evolution; the new 
science of comparative religions; the substitutes for Christianity 
offered ; the discussions relating to the value of Life; the Higher 
Criticism ; ; Literary Criticism ; the Place of Christ in the Conflict ; 
and the unique claims of Christ and Christianity are rapidly sur- 
veyed in the second section. 

Sone of the chief difficulties in the way of the acceptance of the 
doctrine of Evolution ; the difference in kind between Christianity 
and the great non-Christian systems, and the fatal defects of these 
systems ; the miserable insufficiency of the offered substitutes for 
Christianity are pointed out. The ever-increasing mass of evidence 
in favour of the accepted dates and authorship ofthe Sacred Books, 
and the failure in destructive as well as in constructive criticism of 
the school of so-called Higher Criticism ; the unreasonable and mis- 
chievous character of Mr. M. Arnold’s Literary Criticism ; and finally, 
the impossibility of accounting for Christ on any naturalistic theory, 
the contrast between Christ and the founders of non-Christian re- 
ligions, and between Christianity and these religions, the practical 
test and special fruits of Christianity are briefly sketched. 

References are given to the various numbers of the Present Day 
Series in which the subjects, more or less slightly referred to in 
this Tract, are treated. Guidance is thus furnished for the use of 
the PRESENT DAY SERIES as far as it has gone. 

In the last section of the Tract the possible issues of THE 
PRESENT CONFLICT WITH UNBELIEF are glanced at; and it is 
shown that while the final issue is~certain, the nearer issues are 
uncertain; and the need of something more than argument to 
bring men to heartfelt obedience to the faith, and to save them 
from their sins—even the Gospel, received “in power, and in the 
Holy Ghost, and in much assurance ”—is pointed out. 


THE 


PRESENT CONFLICT WITH UNBELIEF 


& Survey and a Forecast, 


INTRODUCTORY. 


gy #| SUBJECT so vast as THE Present Con- 


FEE. f FLICr witH UNBELIEF can only be 


SC fa) treated in a very brief and compendious 
way within the limits of a Tracr. A 
bird’s eye view of it, however, indicating its salient 
general aspects and chief special features, and 
glancing at its possible issues, will be interesting 
to the onlooker, who hears of the conflict on every 
side, but has not time to read books on its various 
branches. Such a view will also be helpful to 
those who are working among the people, and meet 
with persons who are unsettled or sceptical on one 
or other of the subjects in dispute. 

Every combatant in the Christian army is not 
placed in a position whence he can see the whole 
of the battle; his immediate concern is to quit 
himself like a man at his own post of duty; 
but he will not be less fitted for his own proper 
work in the conflict by taking, as occasion serves, 


The vastness 
of the 
subject, 


A bird’s eye 
view useful 
to onlookers 
and workers, 


4 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


The 
impressions 
of an 
observer of 
ordinary 
intelligence, 


The range 
of subjects 
now brought 
into the 
conflict. 


a wider survey of it, and estimating the strength 
and resources of the assailants of Christianity 
with which he believes his own highest well-being 
and the highest well-being of his fellow-men to be 
inseparably connected. 


I. 
SOME GENERAL ASPECTS OF THE 
CONFLICT. 
1. Tue Extent or THE Present ConFtLicr. 


On looking round at the struggle now going on 
between faith and unbelief, an observer of ordinary 
intelligence, who does little more than dip here and 
there into the higher periodical literature of the 
day and notice the lists of books that are in circu- 
lation, can hardly fail to be struck by the extent of 
the present confiict. 

It is no longer limited to questions concerning 
natural and revealed religion, the historical evidences 
of Christianity, the genuineness and authenticity 
of the sacred writings; it extends to the question of 
the existence and character of God, the possibility 
of miracles, the origin of the Universe, the age and 
origin of man, the nature of mind, the source, basis, 
and sanction of morals, the origin of religion in all 
its forms, the nature of the differences between the 
various religions of the world, whether there be 
any radical and essential difference between them 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


between Judaism and Christianity on the one hand, 
and the great non-Christian religions of the past 
and the present on the other. The conflict with 
unbelief at the present time, in short, goes down 
deeper and covers a far more widely-extended 
area than it ever did in any previous period of 
Christian History. 


2. Tue PoruLARIZATION oF It, 


A second aspect of the conflict with unbelief that 
must strike such an observer as has been supposed, is 
the popularization of tt. 


In his valedictory article on resigning the direc- 
tion of the Fortnightly Review in October, 1882, 
the gifted Editor, referrmg to the influence of 
Reviews, of which the Fortnightly was the first 
English type, wrote: 


“They have brought abstract discussion from the library to 
the parlour, and from the serious student down to the first man 
in the street. The popularity of such Reviews means that really 
large audiences, le eros public, are eagerly interested in the radi- 
cal discussion of propositions which twenty years ago were only 
publicly maintained, and then in their crudest, least true and 
most repulsive forms, in obscure debating societies and little 
Secularist clubs. Everybody, male and female, who reads any- 
thing at all, now reads a dozen essays a year to show with 
infinite varieties of approach and of demonstration that we can 
never know whether there be a God or not, or whether the soul 
is more or other than a mere function of the body. No article 
that has appeared in any periodical for a generation back, ex- 
cited so profound a sensation as Mr. Huxley’s memorable paper 
on ‘The Physical Basis of Life,’ published in this Review in 
1869. It created just the same kind of stir, that, in a political 


The 
conflict 
deeper and 
wider than 
ever before, 


The 
influence of 
the new 
monthly 
reviews, 


6 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


SL 


The 
conflict 
among the 
masses. 


The 
Secularist 
weeklies and 
monthlies. 


epoch, was made by such a pamphlet as the ‘Conduct of the 
Allies,’ or the French Revolution. This excitement was a sign 
that controversies which had hitherto been confined to books | 
and treatises were now to be admitted to popular periodicals ; 
that the common man of the world would now listen and have 
an opinion of his own on the bases of belief, just as he listens 
and judges in politics or art or letters. The Clergy no longer 
have the pulpit to themselves, for the new Reviews become 
more powerful pulpits, in which heretics were at least as wel- 
come as the orthodox. Speculation has become entirely 


democratised.” 


Mr. Morley in this article was addressing the 
educated public. He did not take into account 
the masses of the people, among whom also an 
active conflict is going on. There are two weekly 
papers exclusively devoted to an anti-theistic 
propaganda, and a third pretty equally devoted 
to political and social questions, and to atheism. 
The Secular Review and The Freethinker are 
the exclusively anti-theistic ones; Zhe National 
Reformer, edited by Mr. Bradlaugh and Mrs. 
Besant, the politico-atheistic one. The announce- 
ment is made in every number of the National 
Reformer that its editorial policy 1s Republican, 
Atheistic! and Malthusian. There are also two 
monthly magazines: Progress; or, The Freethought 


Magazine, and Our Corner. Our Corner discusses — 
political and general subjects, as well as questions 


in controversy between faith and unbelief. 


1 It is only right to state that Mr. Bradlaugh says that he has — 


never declared that there is no God. He only denies that there 


is a personal Creator and moral Governor. He inclines, we © 
believe, to accept the system of Monism—a kind of idealised — 


Materialism. 


a a re lO A Bt oe it ilk By I a, Sa 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


The Freethought Publishing Company issues 
and actively promotes the circulation of works 
regarded as fitted to further the cause on the lines 
of Mr. Bradlaugh’s politico-social-atheistic pro- 
gramme. The conflict among the masses of the 
people is also carried on by means of tracts, 
pamphlets, lectures, printed and delivered, and 
public discussion. In their workshops and in 
their homes there is much free discussion, on all 
the vital questions in dispute, among working-men. 

Unbelief thus may be said to have free access 
to all classes of the people, and free course among 
them. Time was, not so long ago, when the 
avowal of unbelief in many circles brought social 
discredit, if not complete social ostracism, on the 
man who was bold enough to make it. It is not 
so now. Many object to be called infidels and 
atheists, but Agnostic! is a designation which they 
do not disclaim. 


3. Tue Sprrir or THE CoMBATANTS AND THEIR 
ATTITUDE TOWARD CHURCHES. 


A third aspect of the present conflict with un- 
belief which must strike an onlooker ts the spirit in 
which it is carried on by the combatants on etther 
side, by the lecturers and writers who address them- 
selves chiefly to the educated classes on the one hand, 


1 See Present Day Tract, No. 29, The Philosophy of Mr, 
Herbert Spencer Ewamined, by Rev. J, Tyerach, M.A, 


The 
Freethought 
propaganda. 


Unbelief 
has free 
access to 
all classes, 


The terms 
Atheist and 
Agnostic. 


8 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


The 
fairness and 
courtesy 

of the 
writers in 
the higher 
reviews. 


The licence 
of writers 
in the 
Secularist 
press. 


The 
courteous 
spirit 
displayed in 
the public 
discus3ions. 


and by those who write in the Secularist press and 
speak on the Secularist platform on the other. 

The amenities of controversy are observed in the 
literature for the educated. A spirit of fairness 
and courtesy, as a rule, distinguishes them. The 
new conditions under which the conflict is con- 
ducted —the champions of faith and unbelief 
agreeing to fight the battle in the pages of the 
same Review and speaking in their own names 
without any disguise—conduce to, if they do not 
absolutely necessitate, this mutual courtesy. 

The state of matters among the Secularists is 
quite different. In their press, the most outrage- 
ous and outspoken blasphemy, of the coarsest and 
most revolting kind, pictorial caricature of the most 
sacred subjects and themes, of God and of Christ, 
and the expression of the most unmeasured per- 
sonal ‘contempt for the champions of Christianity, 
are not indeed the only weapons used, but are 
weapons constantly in use. In the public dis- 
cussions with the advocates of Christianity, which 
form so marked a feature of the conflict as carried 
on among the masses, the rules of courtesy seem 
to be generally observed, as far as can be judged 
from the printed reports, but unbridled license 
is resorted to by many writers in the Secularist 
press. 

Dr. Flint, in the Lecture on Secularism in his 
* Anti-theistic Theories,” speaks of the temperate 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


and becoming language employed in the National 
Reformer and Secular Review. He would with- 
draw this description, so far at any rate as the 
Secular Review under its present management is 
concerned, were he to re-write his lecture now. 
Its style of controversy is frequently, in its way, as 
offensive to Christian feeling as the pictorial cari- 
catures which appear in the Preethinker. A spirit 
of mildness and toleration on the one hand, and of 
bitter and uncompromising opposition on the other, 
marks the attitude assumed towards the Church 
by the representatives of cultivated Agnosticism 
and working-class Secularism respectively. The 
former, it would appear, in many cases at least, 
go to church, and give a kind of support to the 
clergyman, at least in the country; some actually 
go to Communion. The latter have not a good 
word for the Church or any Evangelical denomina- 
tion or society, but oppose her root and branch. 
They regard her as a fountain of manifold evil, 
and would sweep her away altogether. 

Striking illustrations of the attitude towards the 
Church of the two forms of unbelief have been 
given within the last three or four years, in articles 
by able writers. In the Mineteenth Century, during 
the year 1882, three articles appeared, entitled 


“The Agnostic at Church.” The first was by Louis 7 


Greg. He puts the question, “Is an Agnostic 
justified under any ordinary circumstances in 


The 
attitude of 
Unbelief 
towards the 
Church, 


The spirit of 
cultivated 
Agnos- 
ticism, 


The spirit 
of working- 
class 
Secularism, 


8 
Agnostic at 
Church, 


10 


The Present Conflict with Unbelvef. 


i 


Mr. Louis 
Greg’s 
conclusion 
that the 
Agnostic 
should go 
to Church, 


His reasons 
for coming 
to this 


conclusion, 


Mr. 
Shorthouse’s 
conclusion 
that the 
Agnostic 
should go to 
communion. 


attending regularly the worship of a God, whom 
indeed he does not absolutely deny, but of whom 
he knows nothing?” ‘The conclusion he comes 
to is, that for the sake of example to the lower 
and lower middle classes, who cannot frame their 
lives on an abstract idea, im order to co-operate 
with the parson, and strengthen his influence, the 
Agnostic should go to church, in the country at 
least. He grounds his conclusion on the fact that 
the parson is the natural leader in all work that 
is to be done for the moral and physical well- 
being of the people in the village, and that the 
Church does more good than harm directly and 
indirectly. He also thinks that his own know- 
nothing attitude of mind on the subject of religion 
justifies the conclusion. He repudiates the author- 
ity of the Bible and Prayer-Book, but recognises 
the beauty of thought and language which cha- 
racterises them, and the beneficence of the influence 
they have exercised. He would not repeat the 
Creeds nor offer himself as a communicant, and 
would absent himself on the days when the 
Athanasian Creed was read. 

The second article was by Mr. Shorthouse. He 
expresses his general agreement with Mr. Greg, 
but goes further. He argues that the Agnostic 
should offer himself as a communicant, on account 


of his sympathy with the sacramental principle, — 


which, he says, underlies all Church worship. 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


‘« This,” he adds, ‘‘is the great underlying principle of life, 
by which the commonest and dullest incidents, the most un- 
attractive sights, the crowded streets and unlovely masses of 
people become instinct with a delicate purity, a radiant beauty, 
become the outward and visible sign of inward and invisible 
grace, This principle, which underlies all things, is concentrated 
in the supreme act of Church worship.” 


Li 


Mr. 
Shorthouse 
on the 
sacramental 
principle. 


The third article was, we believe, by a lady, and J. H 


is signed J. H. Clapperton. She controverts Mr. 
Greg’s reasoning, and maintains that truthfulness, 
which must form part of the creed of the Agnostic, 
requires conformity of outward personal conduct 
to the inward state of thought and feeling. On 
moral grounds, this writer’s conclusion is irre- 
fragable. 

Mr. Greg, for reasons which he assigns, confines 
his discussion to attendance at the services of the 
Church of England, and sets aside the considera- 
tion of attendance at Roman Catholic and Non- 
If the 
truth were fully known, we believe it would be 
found that Agnostics are in the habit of attending 
the services both of Roman Catholic and Noncon- 
formist churches. 

Mr. Goldwin Smith, in his article, “ England 
Revisited,’ in Macmillan’s Magazine, October, 
1886, referring to the rapid spread of scepticism 
and the passion for ritual, which he suspects to be 
symptomatic of a loss of interest in prayer and 
preaching, making show and music needful, says, 


conformist, except Unitarian services. 


Olapperton’s 
contention 
that outward 
conduct 
should re- 
flect inward 
thought and 
feeling. 


Agnostics 
go to other 
than Church 
of England 
Services. 


12 


Mr. Goldwin 
Smith’s 
view. 


The 
reticence 
of the 
Agnostic. 


The 
qualities 
needful for 
dealing with 
unsettled 
minds. 


The proposal 
of the 


Editor of the 
Secular 
Review, 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


“When the Agnostic goes to church, it is to a 
Ritualistic church he goes.” It is not always so. 
On Mr. Greg’s principle, he would go to the parish 
church, whatever Church party or school of 
thought might be represented in it. 

Startling revelations would be made as to the 
state of belief or unbelief among the people in 
large and influential congregations, Evangelical as 
well as Ritualist, Nonconformist as well as Church 
of England, if the truth on the subject were fully 
known. The Agnostic who goes to church is 
generally reticent—he does not open his mind to 
everybody. One of the ablest living Christian 
apologists in this country, once told the present 
writer his own experience of the unsettled and 
sceptical state of many minds in the large Evan- 
gelical congregation of which he was a member. 
People spoke freely to him, because they believed 
him to be open-minded and liberal. People will 
speak to one who has the open-mindedness re- 
sulting from thorough familiarity with the subject 
in dispute, appreciation of the points of difficulty, 
candour in dealing with them, and sympathy with 
the doubts and perplexities of unsettled minds. 

The attitude of the Secularists towards Christian 
churches may be more briefly but very strikingly 
illustrated. A few years ago the editor of the 
Secular Review proposed a new departure in his 
paper; viz., that Secularist candidates should 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


13 


come forward for seats in Parliament as the 
avowed advocates of Atheism, and that a measure 
should be promoted for placing all churches and 
chapels under the operation of a Permissive Bill, 
in the same way as the United Kingdom Alliance 
desires to place public-houses. Opinion on- the 
subject among the party was found to be too much 
divided to proceed further, and the proposal was 
dropped. It illustrates, however, the spirit and 
attitude of some at least of the most advanced 
wing of Secularists towards Christian churches, 
and shows what things would come to if they had 
their way. 7 

The tolerance which distinguishes the com- 
batants in the higher forms of literature may 
fairly suggest the question as to the depth of 
conviction which it covers. On this point Mr. 
Morley says, in the article already quoted: 


** How far it goes, leb us not be too sure. Intellectual fair- 
ness is often only another name for indolence and inconclusive- 
ness of mind, just as a love of truth is sometimes a fine phrase 
for temper. ‘To be piquant counts for much, and the interest 
of seeing on the drawing-room tables of devout Catholics and 
high-flying Anglicans” (he might have added others as well) 
‘‘ article after article, sending divinities, creeds, and churches all 
headlong into limbo, was indeed piquant. Much of all this 
elegant dabbling in infidelity has been a caprice of fashion. The 
Agnostic has had his day with the fine ladies, like the black 
footboy of other times, or the spirit-rappers and table-turners 
of our own. When we perceived that such people actually 
thought that the churches had been raised on their feeb again 
by the puerile apologetics of Mr. Mallock, then it was easy to 


Division of 
opinion 
among the 
Secularists 
on the 
proposal, 


How far the 
tolerance in’ 
the writers 
in the higher 
forms of 
literature 
goes, 


14 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


Is the 
conflict a 
tournament 
or a battle ? 


The reali 
of the battle, 


Mr. W. R. 
Greg’s 
account of 
the struggle 
through 
which he 
passed. 


see that they had never really fallen. What we have been 
watching, after all, was perhaps a tournament, not a battle.” 

It is satisfactory to read, on Mr. Morley’s 
testimony, that the churches have not fallen. 
There is no doubt that there has been much of 
the caprice of fashion in contemporary infidelity. 
Mr. Morley, in forsaking the editorial chair, and 
pursuing the course he has subsequently taken, 
has indicated pretty plainly his own conviction 
that the present conflict between faith and unbelief 
is a tournament rather than a battle. 

Making all allowance, however, for the element 
of fashion and unreality, there can be no doubt 
that there has been and is a real battle going on. 
Some distinguished champions of unbelief bear the 
scars of the fierce struggle through which they 
passed before they renounced the more or less 
orthodox forms of Christianity in which they were 
trained, and took up the negative ground ultimately 
occupied by them. To cite one instance alone— 
Mr. W. R. Greg, in the preface to his book, Zhe 
Creed of Christendom, its Foundation and Super- 
structure, after stating the conclusions at which 
he has arrived, says, 


‘One word in conclusion. Let it not be supposed that the 
conclusions sought to be established in this book have been 
arrived at eagerly, or without pain or reluctance. The pursuit 
of truth is easy to a man who has no human sympathies, 
whose vision is impaired by no fond partiality, whose heart is 
torn by no divided allegiance. To him the renunciation of error 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


15 


presents few difficulties, for the moment it is recognised as 
error its charm ceases. But the case is very different with the 
searcher whose affections are streng, whose associations are 
quick, whose hold upon the past is clinging and tenacious. He 
may love truth with an earnest and paramount devotion ; but he 
loves much else also. He loves errors which were once the 
cherished convictions of his soul. He loves dogmas which were 
once full of strength and beauty to his thoughts, though now 
perceived to be baseless or fallacious. He loves the Church 
where he worshipped in his happy childhood ; where his friends 
and his family worship still; where his grey-haired parents 
await the resurrection of the just ; but where he can worship 
and await no more. He loves the simple old creed of his 
earlier and brighter days, which is the creed of his wife and 
children still, but which inquiry has compelled him to abandon. 
The Past and the Familiar have charms and talismans which 
hold him back in his career, till every fresh step forward 
becomes an effort and an agony ; every fresh error discovered is 
a fresh bond snapped asunder ; every new glimpse of light is 
like a fresh flood of pain poured upon the soul. To such a 
man the pursuit of truth is a daily martyrdom—how hard and 
bitter let the martyr tell. Shame to those who make it doubly 
so! Honour to those who encounter it, saddened, weeping, 
trembling, but unflinching still ! ” 


We cannot doubt that many a champion of 
unbelief bears scars of a similar kind of the 
struggle through which he has passed, though 
few have given such touching expression to their 
feelings. We can sympathise with the struggle and 
the pain of such a thinker, though we believe him 
to have missed the truth which he thought he 
had found, and to have embraced positive error. 
How real the battle is among the flower of our 
young men, every believing teacher of influence 
at the great centres of intellectual life knows; 
how severe is the struggle many of them have 


The struggle 
in Mr. W. R, 
Greg’s mind, 


Others 
doubtless 
have passed 
through 
similar 
experiences 


The battle 
among 
young men, 


16 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


Infidelit 
has made 
progress. 


The 
Christian 
antecedents 
of many 
leaders in 
Unbelief, 


Uneasiness 
and un- 
settlement 
of mind 
within the 
Church, 


to retain the faith they brought with them from 
their homes to the University; how many are 
worsted in the conflict, make shipwreck of their 
faith, and go to swell the ranks of those who are 
labouring to overthrow Christianity, The fact 
that any man thinks it worth while “to dabble in 
infidelity,” is a proof that a real battle is going on, 
that infidelity has made considerable progress—an 
amount of progress which may well cause anxious 
thought to all who have at heart the interests of 
the kingdom of Christ and the truth to which He 
came into the world to testify. 

One of the saddest facts in the conflict is this, 
that not a few of the leaders of the army of 
unbelief were born and trained in the Christian 
fold, and once professed the faith they now seek 
to destroy. 

Another proof of the reality of the present con- 
flict is the uneasiness and unsettlement of mind 
felt by many people within the Christian Church, 
who, although they have neither tacitly nor openly 
embraced any form of infidelity and see enough 
in Christianity to keep them within its fold, see, 
at the same time, more in the facts and argu- 
ments brought forward against it than they are 
able to meet. 


ee 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


II. 
SPECIAL FEATURES OF THE CONFLICT. 


1. THe Doctrine or Evouurion. 


It is now time to look at the more important 
special features of the conflict. One of these is the 
part played in tt by the theory of Evolution. 

The theory is at once so simple and so com- 
prehensive, so easily apprehended and so far- 
reaching in its application; the conception it gives 
of the processes by which, according to it, the 
Universe came to be what it is, and of the period 
of time necessary to bring about the result, is so 
magnificent, that it is little wonder that many 
minds are fascinated and overpowered by it, that 
the facts that make for it are made the most of, 
and the difficulties in the way of its acceptance 


minimised. These difficulties are indeed formidable. 7 


The following are some of them. Every effort to 
prove that life has ever originated from anything 
but life has hitherto completely failed. All the 
evidence we possess on the subject goes to prove 
that man appeared suddenly; and the earliest 
human remains known to us, show that primitive 
man was in all essential respects the same as the 
man of to-day.1 The “rock record of plant-life” 

1 See The Age and Origin of Man Geologically Considered. By 


S. R. Pattison, Esq., F.G.S., and Dr. Friedrich Pfaff, Professor 
in the University of Erlangen,—Present Day Tract, No, 13, 


0 


17 


The 
fascinations 
of the 
theory of 
Evolution. 


e 
difficulties 
of the 
theory. 


18 


The 
evidence for 
the truth of 
the theory 
incomplete. 


It is neces- 
sary to be 
on our 
guard 
against 
being 
carried away 
by the 
theory. 


The number 
and nature 
of the 
missing 
links 
formidable. 


The theory 
neither non- 
theistic, nor 


anti-theistic. 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


does not show that there has been a development 
from the less perfect to the more perfect forms 
of vegetable life. 

Evolutionists meet difficulties like these by the 
expression of a hope that the complete proof of 
the doctrine at present lacking will one day be 
forthcoming. We may be excused for declining 
to receive the doctrine till the evidence is complete. 

The imposing character of the theory should put 
us on our guard against being carried away by 
it, and lead us to keep in mind that although 
Evolution is treated as a practically demonstrated 
truth by many men of science, both believers and 
unbelievers, it is as yet simply an hypothesis await- 
ing conclusive proof—proof which perhaps may 
never be forthcoming, because it may not exist. 
The number and nature of the missing links im 
the chain of evidence necessary to demonstrate the 
theory are so formidable as to make the amount of 
faith needed to receive it as an established truth 
so great as to savour almost of credulity. 

Atheism and Agnosticism use the theory for 
their destructive and negative purposes; but it is 
well to remember that it is not necessarily a non- 
theistic, or an anti-theistic theory. Indeed, it may 
be said to require Theism to make it. workable. 
Most defenders of the Christian faith take pains 
to show that it is consistent with Theism, though 
they may think that it removes God to an im- 


ee a 


. 
; 
| 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


19 


eee 


mense distance from us. Some avail themselves of 
the teachings of distinguished non-Christian evolu- 
tionists to prove that it is not inconsistent with 
faith in Providence and in the efficacy of prayer. 

Thus Dr. Matheson uses such teaching. He 
Says : 


‘When Mr. Spencer speaks of an inscrutable force lying at 
the basis of all things, what does he mean? Not simply that 
the first stage in the evolution of the world encloses an un- 
fathomable mystery, but that every stage in the evolution of 
the world encloses an unfathomable mystery. To Mr. Spencer 
the primal force is not merely the first force, but the basal force, 
the force that lies at the root of every phenomenon. In every 
movement of matter, in every pulsation of life, in every 
movement of consciousness, there is in the view of this 


philosopher an unexplained something, a region which is per-~ 


fectly inscrutable ; the mystery which we commonly attribute 
to creation is with him a universal presence. Now, let us under- 
stand what this amounts to; nothing less than this, that the 
material chain of effects and causes is not in itself adequate to 
explain any phenomenon of nature or of life ; that in point of 
fact the principle of external continuity is every moment tran- 
scended, but not superseded, by another mysterious principle 
of whose character and modes of action we are profoundly 
ignorant. Here, then, within the chain of nature there is a 
margin not only for that which transcends experience, but, 
what is of more importance, for our actual communion with 
that which transcends experience. 

‘‘ Let us remember that on the principle of Mr. Spencer this 
inscrutable force in nature, however incomprehensible to us, is 
one that already comprehends us. If we agree to call this force 
inscrutable and unsearchable will, we shall already have estab- 
lished a scientific basis not only for belief in a guiding providence, 
but for the possibility of an efficacious prayer.” ? 


Argument of this kind, which does not necessarily 
imply that those who use it accept the theory of 
1 From an Address delivered at Belfast, 1884. 


Admissions 
of non- 
Christian 
evolution- 
ists. 


How Dr. 
Matheson 
turns them 
to account, 


20 


Wherein the 
theory of 
Evolution is 
inconsistent 
with the 
teaching of 
Christianity. 


The study of 


the great 
non- 
Christian 
systems. 


The 

purpose of 
unbelief in 
the study. 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


Evolution as established, has its value in the con- 
troversy. It wrests the chosen weapons of un- 
belief from its hands, and turns them against 
itself. It is open to doubt, however, to say the 
least, whether the theory of Evolution is consistezxt 
with the whole teaching of Christianity—its whole 
teaching concerning man,' for instance—concerning 
the origin of the human race, the Fall, the first 
and second Adam, etc.” 


2. THe New Science or ComMPARATIVE RELIGIONS. 


Another special feature of the present conflict is 
the part the new science of comparative religions plays 
im it. 

The great non-Christian religious systems are 
carefully studied, not only for their own sakes, 
as an interesting and important branch of human 
knowledge, but, on the unbelieving side, to prove 
that the difference between them and Christianity 
is only one of degree, and not of kind—that all 
religious systems alike are the product of the 
human mind merely; and, on the Christian side, 


‘See Present Day Tracts on Man, Nos. 12, Zhe Witness of 
Mam’s Moral Nature to Christianity, by Prof. Thomson, M.A; 
30, Man not a Machine, but a Responsible Free Agent, by 
Prebendary Row; 39, Man, Physiologically Considered, by 
Prof. Macalister. 

* For contributions to the Theistic controversy see Present 
Day Tracts, Nos. 5, Zhe Existence and Character of God, by Pre- 
bendary Row ; 17, Modern Materialism, by Rev. W. F. Wilkin- 
son, M.A.; 20, The Religious Teachings of the Sublime and 
Beautiful in Nature, by Canon Rawlinson, 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


21 


to show by a comparison and a contrast between 
them and Christianity, that the difference between 
them and it is vital and essential ; that Christianity 
contains every element of truth which they embody 
and teach ; that it contains truth which they lack, 
and supplies a remedy for moral evil and a motive 
power for moral living of which they are wholly 
destitute. The strength of the case on the side of 
unbelief les in the ethical teaching of some of 
these hoary systems, particularly Confucianism.! 
But while acknowledging to the fullest extent 
everything that can be truly said concerning the 
excellence of this moral teaching, as far as it goes, 
the Christian apologist can show that what Chris- 
tianity has to offer is better than the best in these 
great religions. 

In discussing these subjects we again meet with 
the theory of Evolution as we do in the discussion 
of many other subjects,” but we are able to point 
out facts that seem inconsistent with it. We are 
able to point to the fact, that the further back we 

1 See Present Day Tracts, Nos. 14, Rise and Decline of Islam, 
by Sir W. Muir ; 18, Christianity and Confucianism Compared in 
their Teaching of the Whole Duty of Man, by James Legge, 
LL.D. 3 25, The Zend-Avesta, and the Religion of the Parsis, by J. 
Murray Mitchell, LL.D. ; 33, The Hindu Religion, by J. Murray 
Mitchell, LL.D.; 46, Buddhism, by Dr. H. Robert Reynolds ; 
49, Is the Evolution of Christianity from mere Natural Sources 
Credible? by John Cairns, D.D. ; 51, Christianity and Ancient 
Paganism, by J. Murray Mitchell, LL.D. 


* See Present Day Tract, No. 48, The Ethics of Evolution 
Examined, by Rev. J. Iverach, M.A, 


The purpose 
of Christian 
believers in 
the study. 


The strength 
of the case 
on the 
unbelieving 
side. 


What the 
Christian 
apologist 

can show. 


The theory 
of Evolution 
in relation to 
this study. 


22 


Facts 
inconsistent 
with the 
theory of 
Evolution 
derived from 
the study of 
the great 
non- 
Christian 
religions 


The 
testimony of 
Sir Monier 
Williams. 


His 
experience 
as a student 
of the Sacred 
Books of 
the East, 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


goin the historical development of these ancient 
religions, the nearer we get to the sources of 
them, the purer they are found to be. A full 
investigation of the oldest religions of the world 
furnishes evidence of the all-but, if not the ab- 
solutely universal prevalence of monotheistic 
beliefs! All this is exactly as it ought not to be 
on the assumption of the truth of the doctrine of 
Evolution, and exactly as we should expect it to 
be on the assumption of the truth of Christianity, 
as it has hitherto been generally received and 
understood. 

It is worth while quoting here the testimony of 
an eminent specialist in the science of Comparative 
Religions with reference both to the theory of 
Evolution as applied to the subject and to the 
contrast rather than the comparison of the Bible 
with the sacred books of other religions. At the 
annual meeting of the Church Missionary Society 
in Exeter Hall on the 8rd of May, Sir Monier 
Williams said,? referring to the subtle danger that 
lurks beneath the duty (of missionaries) of studying 
the non-Christian religious systems : 


‘Perhaps I may best explain the nature of this danger by 
describing the process my own mind has gone threugh whilst 
engaged in studying the so-called Sacred Books of the East, as I 
have now done for at least forty years. In my youth I had been 


1 See Present Day Tract, No. 11, The Early Prevalence of 
Monotheistic Beliefs, by Canon Rawlinson. 
* Record, May 6, 1887, 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


23 


accustomed to hear all non-Christian religions described as 
‘inventions of the devil.’ And when I began investigating 
Hinduism and Buddhism, some well-meaning Christian friends 
expressed their surprise that I should waste my time by 
grubbing in the dirty gutters of Heathendom. Well, after a 
little examination, I found many beautiful gems glittering 
there—nay, I met with bright coruscations of true light flashing 
here and there amid the surrounding darkness. Now, fairness 
in fighting one’s opponents is ingrained in every Englishman’s 
nature, and as I prosecuted my researches into these non- 
Christian systems I began to foster a fancy that they had been 
unjustly treated. I began to observe and trace out curious 
coincidences and comparisons with our own Sacred Book of the 
East. I began, in short, to be a believer in what is called the 
Evolution and Growth of Religious Thought. ‘These imper- 
fect systems,’ I said to myself, ‘ are clearly steps in the develop- 
ment of man’s religious instincts and aspirations. They are 
interesting efforts of the human mind struggling upwards 
towards Christianity. Nay, it is probable that they were all in- 
tended to lead up to the One True Religion, and that Christianity 
is, after all, merely the climax, the complement, the fulfilment 
of them all.’ : 

‘*Now, there is unquestionably a delightful fascination 
about such a theory, and, what is more, there are really 
elements of truth in it. But I am glad of stating publicly 
that I am persuaded I was misled by its attractiveness, and 
that its main idea is quite erroneous. The charm and danger 
of it, I think, lie in its apparent liberality, breadth of view, 
and toleration. In the Zimes of last October 14 you will find 
recorded a remarkable conversation between a Lama priest and 
a Christian traveller, in the course of which the Lama says 
that, ‘Christians describe their religion as the best of all 
religions ; whereas among the nine rules of conduct for the 
Buddhist there is one that directs him never either to think or 
to say that his own religion is the best, considering that sincere 
men of other religions are deeply attached to them.’ Now, to 
express sympathy with this kind of liberality is sure to win 
applause among a certain class of thinkers, 

‘*We must not forget, too, that our Bible tells us that God has 
not left Himself without witness, and that in every nation he that 
feareth God and worketh righteousness is accepted with Him. 
Yet I contend, notwithstanding, that a limp, flabby, jelly-fish 


He discovers 
beautiful 
gems, 


Observes 
coincidences 
and 
comparisons 
with the 
Bible. 


Regards 

Christianity 
as the climax 
of them all 


The main 
idea of 

Evolution 
erroneous, 


Spurious 
liberality. 


The 
testimony of 
the Bible, 


24 


The Present Conflict with Unbelies. 


The 
manliness of 
the Bible, 


It points to 
one only 
Saviour. 


How non- 
Christian 
sacred books 
are to be 
studied, 


Reasons for 
contrayven- 
ing the 
favourite 
philosophy 
of the day. 


tolerance is utterly incompatible with the nerve, fibre, and 
backbone that ought to characterise a manly Christian. I 
maintain that a Christian’s character ought to be exactly what 
the Christian’s Bible intends it to be. 

“‘Take that Sacred Book of ours; handle reverently the 


whole volume ; search it through and through, from the first _ 


chapter to the last, and mark well the spirit that pervades the 
whole. You will find no limpness, no flabbiness, about its 
utterances. Even sceptics who dispute its Divinity are ready to 


admit that it is a thoroughly manly book. Vigour and manhood 


breathe in every page. It is downright and straightforward, bold _ 
and fearless, rigid and uncompromising. It tells you and meto ~ 
be either hot or cold. If God be God, serve Him. If Baal be 
God, serve him. We cannot serve both. We cannot love both. 
Only one Name is given among men whereby we may be saved. 
No other name, no other Saviour, more suited to India, to 
Persia, to China, to Arabia, is ever mentioned, is ever hinted at. 

‘‘What! says the enthusiastic student of the science of religion, 
do you seriously mean to sweep away asso much worthless waste 


paper all these thirty stately volumes of Sacred Books of the Kast _ 


just published by the University of Oxford? No—not at all— 
nothing of the kind. On the contrary, we welcome these books. _ 
We ask every missionary to study their contents, and thankfully 
lay hold of whatsoever things are’ true and of good report in 
them. But we warn him that there can be no greater mistake 
than to force these non-Christian bibles into conformity with 
some scientific theory of development, and then point to the 
Christian’s Holy Bible as the crowning product of religious 
evolution. ‘ So far from this, these non-Christian bibles are all 
developments in the wrong direction. They all begin with 
some flashes of true light, and end in darkness. Pile them, if 
you will, on the left side of your study table; but place your 
own Holy Bible on the right side—all by itself—all alone—and 
with a wide gap between. 

** And now, with all deference to the able men I see around 
me, I crave permission to teil you why, or at least to give 
two good reasons, for venturing to contravene, in so plain- 
spoken a manner, the favourite philosophy of the day. — 
Listen to me, ye youthful students of the so-called Sacred 
Books of the East; search them through and through, and 
tell me, do they affirm of Vyasa, of Zoroaster, of Confucius, 
of Buddha, of Muhammad, what our Bible affirms of the 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


20 


Founder of Christianity—that He, a sinless Man, was made 
sin? Not merely that He is the Eradicator of Sin, but that 
He, the sinless Son of Man, was Himself made sin. Vyasa and 
the other founders of Hinduism enjoined severe penances, 
endless lustral washings, incessant purifications, infinite repe- 
titions of prayers, painful pilgrimages, arduous ritual, and sacri- 
ficial observances, all with the one idea of getting rid of sin. 
All their books say so. But do they say that the very men who 
exhausted every invention for the eradication of sin were them- 
selves sinless men made sin? Zoroaster, too, and Confucius, 
and Buddha, and Muhammad, one and all bade men strain 
every nerve to get rid of sin, or at least of the misery of sin ; 
but do their sacred books say that they themselves were sinless 
men made sin? Understand me, I do not presume as a layman 
to interpret the apparently contradictory proposition put forth 
in our Bible that a sinless man was made sin. All I now con- 
tend for is that it stands alone; that it is wholly unparalleled ; 
that it is not to be matched by the shade of a shadow of a 
similar declaration in any other book claiming to be the expo- 
nent of the doctrine of any other religion in the world. 
“Once again, ye youthful students of the so-called Sacred 
Books of the East, search them through and through, and tell 
me, do they affirm of Vyasa, of Zoroaster, of Confucius, of Bud- 
-dha, of Muhammad, what our Bible affirms of the Founder of 
Christianity—that He, a dead and buried Man, was made Life, 
not merely that He is the Giver of life, but that He, the dead and 
buried Man, is Life? ‘Iam the Life,’ ‘When Christ, who is 
our Life, shall appear.’ ‘He that hath the Son hath Life.’ Let 
me remind you, too, that the blood is the Life, and that 
our Sacred Book adds this matchless, this unparalleled,’ this 
astounding assertion: ‘Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of 
Man and drink His Blood, ye have no Life in you.’ Again, I 
say, I am not now presuming to interpret so marvellous, so 
stupendous a statement. All I contend for is that it is abso- 
lutely unique, and I defy you to produce the shade of the 
shadow of a similar declaration in any other sacred book of the 
world. And bear in mind that these two matchless, these two 
unparalleled, declarations are closely, are intimately, are indis- 
solubly connected with the great central facts and doctrines of 
our religion—the Incarnation, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, 
the Ascension of Christ. Vyasa, Zoroaster, Confucius, Buddha, 
Muhammad, all are dead and buried ; and mark this, their 


What the 
Bible aftirins 
of Christ. 


What the 
books of 
other re- 
ligions say 
their 
founders 
enjoined, 


Further 
testimony 

of the Bible 
concerning 
Christ. 


No such de- 
clarations in 
any other 

sacred book 
in the world. 


26 The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


bones have crumbled into dust, their flesh is dissolved, their — 
Christianity bodies are extinct. Even their followers admit this. Chris- 
alone com- as : 5 E 
memorates  tianity alone commemorates the passing into the heavens of its 
al sev divine Founder, not merely in the spirit, but in the body, and 
heavens of  ‘ with flesh, bones, and all things appertaining to the perfection 
i Divine —_ of man’s nature,’ to be the eteynal source of life to His people. 
“ounder, Z 

Bear with me a moment longer. 
ae dag “‘Tt requires some courage to appear intolerant—to appear 
Bible and unylelding—in these days of flabby compromise and milk ca 
ee eage of and water concession ; but I contend that the two unparalleled — 
religions declarations quoted by me from our Holy Bible make a gulf — 
impassable. between it and the so-called Sacred Books of the East which 7 
sever the one from the other utterly, hopelessly, and for — 
ever—not a mere rift which may be easily closed up, not — 
a mere rift across which the Christian and the non-Chris- 
tian may shake hands and interchange similar ideas in regard 
to essential truths, but a veritable gulf which cannot be 
bridged over by any science of religious thought. Yes, a bridge= 
less chasm which no theory of Evolution can ever span. 

“*Go forth, then, ye missionaries, in your Master’s name; go 
forth into all the world, and after studying all its false religions D 
and philosophies, go forth and fearlessly proclaim to suffering — 
humanity the plain, the unchangeable, the eternal facts of the _ 
Gospel—nay, I might almost say the stubborn, the unyielding, — 
the inexorable facts of the Gospel. Dare to be downright with — 
all the uncompromising courage of your own Bible, while with _ 
it your watchwords are love, joy, peace, reconciliation. Be fair; ¥ 
be charitable, be Christ-like; but let there be no mistake. 
He who Let it be made absolutely clear that Christianity cannot, must 
hb deed not, be watered down to suit the palate of either Hindu, — 
false to the Buddhist, or Muhammadan, and that whosoever wishes to pass 
“ties eee from the false religion to the true can never hope to do so by the 
in faith. rickety planks of compromise, or by help of faltering hands held — 

out by half-and-half Christians. He must leap the gulf in 
faith, and the living Christ will spread His everlasting arms — 
beneath and land him safely on the Eternal Rock.” 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


27 


8. SUBSTITUTES FOR CHRISTIANITY. 


Another special feature of the present conflict, ts 
the recognition by unbelief of man’s need for religion 
of some kind, and of the necessity of offering some 
substitute for Christianity. 

The so-called religion of Humanity?! is the only 
fully-fledged substitute in the field. It offers col- 
lective humanity, or the abstract idea of humanity, 
instead of God, as the object of worship. 

It is provided with a ritual, a pontiff, a priest- 
hood, with a calendar, festivals, and sacraments. 
It is needless to describe it in detail; its absurd- 
ities have been adequately exposed by many pens. 


‘* Almost the only noble characteristic about it,” says 
Dr. Flint in his ‘‘Anti-thetstie Theories,” ‘‘is the spirit of dis- 
interestedness which it breathes, the stress which it lays on 
living for others. In this respect it has imitated, although 
longo intervallo, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. But unlike the 
Gospel, although it enjoins love to one another with the urgency 
which is due, it unseals no fresh source, and brings to light no 
new motives of love.” 


Referring generally to modern substitutes for 
Christianity, Dr. Flint thus sums up the matter : 


‘<The character of the religions which have been invented in 
the present age is no slight indirect confirmation of the Divine 
origin of the religion which they displace. If all that men can 
do in the way of religious invention, even in the nineteenth 
century, with every help that science can give them, is ,like 
what we have seen them doing, the religion which has come 
down to us through so many centuries can have been no human 


1 See Present Day Tract, No. 47, Auguste Comte and the Reli- 
gion of Humanity, by J. Radford Thomson, M.A. 


The 
religion of 
Humanity. 


Its only 
noble 
charace 
teristic. 


Modern 
substitutes 
for . 
Christianity 
generally 


28 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


Apart from 
revelation 
the value 
of life 
doubtful. 


The sources 
of much 
pessimism. 


invention.! It could not have been originated by science; and 
were it withdrawn, science would assuredly find no substitute 
for it. Take it away, and we should be left even at this time 
in absolute spiritual darkness and helplessness. That is the 
truth which modern attempts to found and form new religions 
concur in establishing.” 


4, THe VALvuE or LIFE. 


Lhe discussion of the value of life is not a new one 
in the history of the conflict with unbelief, but it is 
a very prominent one in the present conflict. Never 
perhaps has this question been more discussed. 


Apart from the light derived from revelation con- 
cerning the dignity and destiny of man, we do not 
see that a very strong case can be made out in favour 
of the proposition that life is worth living. No 
doubt, a man of a naturally healthy and vigorous 
constitution, mentally, morally, and physically, 
may, by the regular exercise of all his powers, and 
the temperate use of all the good the world offers — 
him, obtain a large measure of enjoyment apart 
from any question of religious belief. No doubt 
moreover, much pessimism 1s traceable to ill-health, 
misfortune, and other natural evils. But the 
doubt whether life be worth living, the conviction 
at which so many, at least of the literary and 
cultured ciasses, have arrived in our day, that life — 


1 See Present Day Tract, No. 19, Christianity as History, 
Doctrine and Life, by Dr. Noah Porter, 

2 See Present Day Tract, No. 34, Modern Pessimism, by J 
Radford Thomson, M.A. 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


29 


PRIMI UTE RRSRLL UOmNOS PP cera ORCI” ie es ae 


is not worth living, is clearly due to the theories 
of the origin and course and issue of things which 
they have adopted. Pessimism seems to be the 
necessary outcome of a system which rejects the 
idea of a personal God and a personal immortality, 
and teaches that the Universe, which originated 
in a vapour cloud, will issue im universal death, 
that causes are now in operation which will render 
the earth unfit for the habitation of man, and 
looks for the exercise of no power from without to 
renew and perpetuate the universe. This view of 
things cuts up by the roots the comfort which some 
profess to derive from the cold substitute of a 
race-immortality for the Christian hope and pros- 
pect of individual immortality, and leaves nothing 
but the umrelieved blackness and darkness of 
absolute despair.’ 

On this view, the possible progress of the race is 
strictly limited, and its extinction is certain. Sir 
William Thompson, one of our foremost physicists, 
calculates that the sun will be exhausted in five 
or six millions of years. ‘This is a short time 
compared with the periods that the theory of 
Evolution demands for the age of the Universe. 

The late Sir W. Siemens, then Dr. Siemens, did 
indeed propound a theory of the renewal of solar 


Pessimism 
the 
necessary 
outcome of 
unbelieving 
speculation 
concerning 
the origin 
and issues 
of the 
universe, 


The 
limitation 
of progress 
an 
extinction of 
the race 


certain or 
this view 


Sir. W. 
Siemene’s 
theory. 


energy, in an interesting paper in the April number | 


1 See Present Day Tract, No. 8, Agnosticism—a Doctrine of 
Despair, by Dr. Noah Porter. 


30 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


Sir. W. 
Siemens’s 
Christian 
standpoint, 


The negative 
assumptions 
of the most 
advanced 
wing of 
those who 
discredit the 
traditional 
views of the 
authorship 
of the books 
at Scripture. 


of the Nineteenth Century, 1882. This theory, if 
established, would relieve the gloom of the outlook 
from the scientific unbeliever’s point of view, but 
it does not seem to have met with much acceptance. 
Dr. Siemens wrote as a Christian theist, and re- 
garded his theory, as undoubtedly it would do, if 
established, as justifying the lines of Addison: = 
“The unwearied sun from day to day 
Does the Creator’s power display, 


And publishes to every land 
The work of an Almighty Hand.” 


5. Tur Hicuer Criricism, 


The discussion of the date, authorship, and authen- 
ticity of the sacred writings, both of the Old and New 


Testament, is not a new feature in the conflict with — 


unbelief, but tt ts conducted on new lines and with — 
new weapons. 

The most advanced wing of those who discredit 
the traditional views starts from the assumption of 
the incredibility or the impossibility of miracles. 
The supernatural in the history must be cleared 
away, the predictive element must be eliminated 
from prophecy. The methods of the so-called 
“Higher Criticism” are employed to shake the 
authority of the Books, and to show that they were 
not written by the men whose names they bear, 
nor at the periods hitherto regarded as the date 
of their origin. 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


31 


The school of “Higher Griticism,” however, 
includes some scholars who do not reject the super- 
natural, yet adopt to a large extent the critical 
principles of the most advanced representatives of 
The assaults are directed chiefly 
against the Old Testament, but are not confined to 
it. The conflicting and ever-changing views and 
theories of the representatives of this school are 


the school. 


not fitted to inspire confidence in their methods or 
results. The large amount of evidence to show 
that the Pentateuch was written by one who lived 
amid the scenes and at the period of the Exodus; 
the impossibility of the promulgation of the law 
having taken place at any subsequent period of 
Israelitish history ;1 the undying Messianic hope 
running through the whole of the Old Testament, 
and the definite predictions of a Messiah which 
defy any attempt to explain them altogether away ;? 
the testimony of Christ to the Old Testament as a 
whole and to many leading events recorded in 
it;3 the’ vital connection between the Old and 
‘New Testaments; the agreement arrived at by 


1 See Present Day Tract, No. 15, The Mosaic Authorship and 
Credibility of the Pentateuch, by the Dean of Canterbury ; and 
No, 28, The Origin of the Hebrew Religion, by HE. R. Conder, D.D. 


2 See Present Day Tract, No. 27, The Present State of the 
Christian Argument from Prophecy, by Principal Cairns. 


3 See The Testimony of Christ to the Old Testament Scriptures, 
by L. Borretb White, D.D. 
No. 31. (R. TS.) 


Crown 16mo. Book Series, 


The super- 
natural not 
denied by 
all scholars 
of the school 
of “* Higher 
Criticism.” 


The evidence 
for the books 
of the Old 
as well as of 
the New 
Testament 
cannot — 
easily be 
shaken, 


32 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


Too much 
to be 
explained 
away on the 
principles of 
the negative 
criticism. 


Ever ac- 
cumulating 
confirma- 
tions of the 
truth of the 
Bible. 


scholars of every school respecting the four greater 
Epistles of St. Paul, which carry conclusions of 
the greatest magnitude and importance ;? and the 
evidence from the character of Jesus Christ,? form 
a body of evidence which the assaults of unbelief 
can never really shake. On the principles of the 
negative criticism there is too much to explain 
away; and the rise and abandonment of one 
theory after another is a virtual confession of the 
impracticability of the task. Negative critics 
are consistent only in their negations. Their 
attempts at reconstruction are as mutually in- 
consistent as their failure in destructive criticism 
is complete. 

Meanwhile, confirmations of the truth of the 
Bible in both its parts are constantly coming to 
light from many sources—from ancient monuments, 
from Palestine exploration, from history, from 


1 See Present Day Tracts, Nos. 2, The Historical Evidence of 
the Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the Dead, by Prebendary 
Row ; 24, Lvidential Conclusions from the Four Greater Epistles — 
of St. Paul, by the late Dean Howson, of Chester; 36, Zhe 
Lord’s Supper, an Abiding Witness to the Death of Christ, by 
Sir W. Muir; 50, Zhe Day of Rest, by Sir J. W. Dawson, 


2 See Present Day Tract, No. 22, The Unity of the Character 
of Christ ; a Proof of its Historical Reality, by Prebendary Row. 


3 See Present Day Tracts, No. 16, The Authenticity of the 
Four Gospels, by Henry Wace, D.D. No. 21, Hrnest Renan and 
his Criticism of Christ, by W. G. Elmslie, M.A. ; No. 26, The 
Authorship of the Fourth Gospel, by F. Godet, D.D.; No. 38, F. C. 
Baur and his Theory of the Origin of Christianity and the 
New Testament Writings, by A. B. Bruce, D.D. 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


science! The results of the ‘“‘ Higher Criticism” [/'$, 


can at most necessitate the reconsideration of some 
of the positions hitherto traditionally accepted, and 
some modifications in them, but by no means to 
the extent that even those who may be called the 
“right wing” of the school—those who still believe 
in supernatural, and, substantially, evangelical 
Christianity—suppose. 


6. Lirerary Oriricism. 


Another less obtrusive, but remarkable feature of 
the present conflict with unbelief, is the use that has 
been made of purely literary criticism to get rid of 
the supernatural in the Bible and tts religion. 

The professed object of this attempt is in the 
interest of the Bible itself andin the removal of 
the hindrances which prevent its reception by the 
people. Mr. Matthew Arnold, who is its author, 
recognises in a sense, that the Bible and its reli- 
gion are all-important. He holds that the Buble is 
misunderstood by all the churches, that they can- 
not conceive it without the gloss they put upon 


1 Gee Present Day Tract, No. 9, The Antiquity of Man 
Historically Considered, by Canon Rawlinson. No. 10, Zhe Wit- 
ness of Palestine to the Bible, by Dr. W. G. Blaikie. No. 32, The 
Witness of Ancient Monuments to the Old Testament Scriptures, 
by A. H. Sayce, D.D. No. 41, Historical Illustrations of the 
New Testament Scriptures, by G. F. Maclear, D.D.; No. 42, 
Points of Contact between Revelation and Natural Science. by Sir 
J. William Dawson. 


D 


The results 
the 

“¢ Higher 

Criticism.” 


Mr. M. 
Arnold’s 
criticism. 


The 
prevailing 
misunder- 
standing of 
the Bible by 
all the 
churches 
according te 
him. 


34 


The gloss 
put on the 
Bible 
according 

to him by all 
the 


churches, 


The cause of 
this alleged 
misunder- 
standing. 


What Mr. 
Arnold 
leaves us by 
applying his 
principles to 
the inter- 
pretation of 
Scripture. 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


it, and that this gloss cannot possibly be true. He 
regards this gloss as separable from the Bible, and 
believes that it must be separated from it, if Mr. 
Bradlaugh is not to have his way and the Bible 
to go. Wonderful to say, this gloss is the assump- 
tion with which all the churches and sects set out, 
that there is 


“a great Personal First Cause, the moral and _ intelligent 
Governor of the Universe, and that from Him the Bible derives 
its authority.” 


“‘This assumption,” he says, ‘‘ can never be verified, and the 
problem is to find, for the Bible, a basis in something that can 
be verified, instead of something which has to be assumed.”’ 


‘¢The want of culture or acquainting ourselves with the best 
that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the 
history of the human spirit,” 
is, he thinks, the cause of this extraordinary 
misunderstanding of the Bible by all the churches 
and sects, and the first step towards understanding 
it is to see that 
‘‘the language of the Bible is fluid, passing and literary, not 
rigid, fixed and scientific, language thrown out at an object of 
consciousness not fully grasped.” 

By interpreting Scripture in accordance with 
these views, Mr. Arnold gets rid of a “ Personal 
First Cause,” “a moral and intelligent Governor 
of the Universe,” leaving us, mstead, “a power, 
not ourselves, which makes for righteousness ;” 
finds religion to be “morality touched with emotion,” 
and “conduct to be the object of religion and 
three-fourths of life.’ ‘When these things come 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


30 


to be thoroughly understood, then, according to 
him, we may expect the re-inthronement of the 
now dethroned Bible. 


“To re-inthrone the Bible,” he says, ‘‘as explained by our 
current theology, whether cultured or popular, is absolutely and 
for ever impossible ; as impossible as to restore the predominance 
of the feudal system, or the belief in witches.” 


Mr. Arnold’s method of commending the Bible 
seems to the common-sense of an ordinary mind 
like nothing so much as betraying it with a kiss. 
It is like secking to promote a man’s vigour and 
capacity for usefulness by cutting out his heart. 
Advocated as it is with all the charm of an ex- 
quisite style, and with what has the effect at least 
of the keenest and most biting sarcasm, it has 
doubtless done deadly work in undermining the 
faith of many among the cultivated classes of the 
community, and more especially among the young. 
He has the faculty of inventing phrases which 
pass into wide circulation, and are fitted to become 
by their serious defectiveness the fruitful seeds of 
much error and unbelief. In addition to his 
substitute for God and his definitions of religion 
and conduct, his phrase the “sweet reasonableness 
of Jesus” is misleading by its utter inadequacy as 
a description of Christ’s character. 

This seems to be the best that Mr. Arnold can 
see in the character of Christ. How meagre it 
is seen to be when we contrast it with the descrip- 


What Mr. 
Arnold’s 
method of 
commending 
the Bible is 
like. 


Mr, Arnold’s 
faculty of 
inventing 
phrases that 
come into 
wide circula- 
tion, and 
mislead by 
their defec- 
tiveness. 


36 


The Present Conflict with Unbelvref. 


The Apostle 
John’s view 
of Christ 
contrasted 
with Mr. M. 
Arnold’s, 


No 
permanent 
standing 
ground 
between 
Christianity 
and Atheism 
or Agnos- 
ticism. 


tion given by the Apostle John of what he saw in 
Christ, in the first chapter of his Gospel, ver. 14: 
**And the word was made flesh, and dwelt among us (and we 


beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the 
Father), full of grace and truth.” . 


These phrases of Mr. Arnold’s are fitted to work 
in unsettled minds disposed to be sceptical, and 
help to produce the bitter fruit of confirmed un- 
belief in a personal God, supernatural religion, and 
a Divine Saviour. 


7. Tue PLAce or Carist IN THE ConrFLicr. 


The last and most important and striking feature 
of the conflict is the place of Christ in it 


It centres more and more in Him, and more 
and more is it becoming clear that between super- 
natural Christianity and Atheism or Agnosticism 
there is no standing-ground that can be permanently 
maintained. The number of believers in God who 
are not believers in the highest claims of Christ is 
comparatively small. In this country at least, and 


1 See Present Day Tracts relating to Christ: No. 3, Christ 
the Central Evidence of Christianity, by Dr. Cairns. No. 21, 
Ernest Renan and His Criticism of Christ, by Prof. Elmslie. 
No. 22, The Unity of the Character of the Christ of the Gospels, 
a Proof of tts Historical Reality, by Prebendary Row. No. 37, 
The Christ of the Gospels, by Dr. H. Meyer. No. 43, The 
Claim of Christ upon the Conscience, by the Rev. W. Steven- 
son, M.A. No. 52, Christ and Creation, by the Rev. W. S. 
Lewis, M.A. 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


37 


on the Continent of Europe, we believe it to be a 
decreasing one. The Deists of last century have 
no followers in the present day. No one takes the 
same ground as they did. Christ Himself not 
only identified Himself with God, but in many 
sayings seems to identify knowledge of Himself 
with knowledge of the Father, and to teach that 
knowledge of Himself and knowledge of the 
Father are inseparable. The signs of the times 
seem to indicate that the truth of this will be 
verified in a wider and more literal sense than 
the one in which we have hitherto generally 
understood it. For ourselves, we do not see how 
Mr. J. Stuart Mill’s terrible dilemma about the 
love and power of God can be met except by 
pointing to the gift and sacrifice of His only 
begotten Son, who was one with and yet distinct 
from Him. 

‘‘' There is hardly a controversy,” says Dr. Patton of Princeton, 


and he says so truly, ‘‘which may not be fought and fought 
victoriously on the battle-ground of Calvary.” 


If He who bled and died there was, as we believe 
Him in our hearts to be, “God, of God, very God, 
of very God,” and yet true man, made in all 
points like as we are, “yet without sin,” there is an 
end of the controversy in all its forms; an end of 
the controversy about origins alike of the Universe, 
of Life, and of Religion ; about the possibility, as 
well as the actual occurrence, of miracles, the future 


The oneness 
of know- 
ledge of 
Christ and 
knowledge 
of the 
Father. 


Every con- 
troversy 
may be 
fought out 
at the Cross 


38 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


The Deity of 
Christ may 
be proved 
from the 
Gospels 
alone. 


The 
portraiture. 
we have 

in them. 


life, and many other questions that occupy and — 
perplex the minds of men to-day. 

That Christ is God may be shown from the — 
Gospels alone. Leaving out of account all ques- — 
tions as to date and authorship, and taking the 
books just as we find them, we have evidence 
enough to satisfy the inquirer that Jesus was and — 
is the Son of God incarnate. We see in them One ~ 
who was man, living within the limits and accord- 
ing to the laws of human nature, and yet who 
possessed a higher than mere human consciousness: 
a consciousness of oneness with God, of a super- — 
human—nay, more, of a Divine origin, and who - 
had prevision of the termination of His own career — 
and of the results of His own work which has been — 
marvellously verified by the course of history. — 
We sce in them one who had knowledge of the — 
human heart and the thoughts of men such as no ~ 
mere human being ever possessed; who had no~ 
consciousness of sin, and could challenge men to 
convict Him of it; who displayed a meekness and 
humility unexampled in recorded human experi- — 
ence, and yet made claims of so astounding a kind 
that they would be impious if they were not abso- 
lutely true. We see in them one in whose mind > 
there is the most perfect balance of all the powers, 
and in whose character there is every conceivable 
perfection without one single flaw. To what 
other conclusion can we come but that Jesus of © 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


39 


Nazareth was all that He claimed to be, all that 
His followers in every age have believed and con- 
fessed Him to be. The portraiture of Jesus Christ 
contained in the Gospels has won the admiration 
of all the best minds in the ranks of unbelief. 
Testimony has been given to it by them which is 
really inconsistent with the principles they hold 
and teach, and is strong enough, we believe, to lead 
an inquirer to the conviction that Jesus Christ is 
the Son of God and the Saviour of the world. 

Only one writer! in the higher ranks of unbelief 
has ventured to breathe a suspicion against the 
perfection of Christ’s charaeter. The Scecularists 
in this country have hitherto enjoyed the monopoly 
of the use of gross and revolting pictorial carica- 
ture. They too were the only assailants of Chris- 
tianity who questioned, in carrying on the con- 
troversy in this country, the sanity of our Lord 
—until an article discussing the subject was 
recently admitted into the Fortnightly Review, 

Every theory propounded by unbelief to account 
for Jesus Christ as He is pourtrayed in the Gospels 
utterly breaks down. He cannot be accounted for 
on any naturalistic theory whatever. He is not 
the product of Evolution. He made a demon- 
strable breach in the law of continuity, and rose 
heaven-high above his earthly environment. He 
was in advance of His own age and of all ages. 


1 Francis Newman. 


The 
testimony of 
the best 
minds in the 
ranks of 
unbelief to 
Christ. 


One exce 
tion in the 
higher ranks 
of unbelief, 


unaccount- 
ableness 

of Christ on 
any natural« 
istic theory. 


40 


— 


Christ 
absolutely 
unique in 
human 
history. 


The claims 
of Christ un- 
paralleled. 


Sustained by 
clear and 
intelligible 
evidence. 


His power 
over the 
moral and 
material 
world, and 
over human 
hearts, 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


He stands out an absolutely unique character in 
human history. He is the key of human history, 
the origin and end of all things. In the testimony 
of the risen Saviour Himself alone can we find the 
most fitting words to bring Him fully before us: 
“T am the First and the Last, and the Living One; 
and I was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore, 
and I have the keys of death and of Hades.”! 


8. Tue Uniquz OCnaims or CHrist AND 


CHRISTIANITY. 


Here then the Christian may take his stand. 
None of the founders of the great non-Christian 
religious systems has ever advanced such claims as 
Christ to be perfect man and trae God—a Divine 
and all sufficient Saviour. The claims of none of the 
founders of the great non-Christian religious systems 
have ever been sustained by evidence so clear and in- 
telligible., Christ’s character has been subjected to 
the keenest criticism for eighteen centuries, and no 
one has been able to prove that any flaw is to be 
found in it. 

No founder of any other great religious system 
has ever displayed such power alike over the moral 
and the material world—a power purely beneficent 
in its character? His works have a moral stamp 
worthy of the perfection of His character, they are 

’ Revelation i. 18 (R.V.). 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 4} 


an integral part of the revelation of the Father 
made by Him.? His power over human hearts is 
as great to-day as it was in the days of His flesh, 
and is experienced by a vastly greater number of 
persons. 

No system but Christianity provides an ade- The 


provisions 
quate remedy for the universal malady of sin, true Patty 


and efficacious help and consolation in all the """* 
sorrows and trials of life, a moral ideal for the 
guidance of life, so lofty,’ and a motive power of 
such potency to produce obedience and self-sacrifice. 
No other system holds out the hope of a blessed 
and glorious future of endless existence, the 
supreme attraction of which is the unclouded 
vision of Him who is the brightness of the glory 
of God the Father, and participation in His 
perfect holiness.‘ 
Christ subjects His religion to the practical test : thes le 
“ By their fruits ye shall know them.” This is a »y Christ 
_ test which any one can apply. Practice, not mere 
_ profession, is the ultimate test to which Christ 


1 See Present Day Tract, No. 1, Christianity and Miracles at 
the Present Day, by Dr. Cairns. 

2 See Present Day Tracts, Nos. 35, The Divinity of our Lord 
in Relation to His Work of Atonement, by Rev. W. Arthur. No. 
44, The Doctrine of the Atonement Historically and Scripturally 
Examined, by Dr. Stoughton. 

3 See Present Day Tract, No. 40, Utilitarianism, by Prof. 
Thomson, 

4 See Present Day Tract, No. 45, Zhe Resurrection of Jesus 
_ Christ in its Historical, Doctrinal, Moral, and Spiritual Aspeets, 
__ by Rev. R. McCheyne Edgar, M.A, 


42 


The 
evidence of 
Christian. 
philan- 
thropy. 


influence of 


ty. much of the philanthropic effort that has no 


-of the indirect influence of the Gospel of Christ — 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


submits his religion. Love is the all-comprehensive 
fruit which Christianity is intended to produce— 
holy, practical, self-sacrificing love—a love inspired 
by unreserved trust in Christ, which shows itself by 
obedience to all His commandments. What other 
religion has produced so plentiful a crop of labours — 
of love of every kind as the religion of Christ? 
Philanthropy as we know it, as it has been deve- 
loped during the last eighteen centuries, is the — 
peculiar fruit of Christianity. Perhaps there 
never has been a more abundant growth of it than — 
in our own day. There can be little doubt that 


formal connection with Christianity is the result — 


on the thoughts and conduct of men.! 


IIl. 
CONCLUSION. 


Tuer Issues OF THE CONFLICT. 


Berore closing this rapid survey of the Present 
Conflict with Unbelief, it may be well to consider 


1 See Present Day Tract, No. 4, Christianity and the Life 
that now is, by Dr. Blaikie. No. 6, Zhe Success of Christianity 
and Modern Explanations of it, by Dr. Cairns. No. 7, Chiis- 
tianity and Secularism, by Dr. Blaikie. No. 23, The Vitality — 
of the Bible, by Dr. Blaikie. No. 31, The Adaptation of the — 
Bible to the Needs and Nature of Man, by Dr, Blaikie. 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


43 


the possible issues of it. Of the ultimate triumph 
of the truth, however long the conflict may endure, 
no Christian can have any doubt. 

It is not the ultimate issues, however, so much 
as the nearer and more uncertain issues that we 
would consider. We would glance at a few of 
those indications which may help us to form an 
opinion as to the possible earlier issues of the 
conflict, and confine our view to those indications 
as affecting our own country. 

When we think of the prevalence of unbelief 
and of the present conflict with unbelief, we think 
chiefly of the cultured classes on the one hand, and 
of the masses of working people among whom the 
Secularist propaganda is carried on on the other. 

Touching the former classes, the state of mind 
that prevails is delineated in a striking manner in 
an article that appeared in the Spectator of the 20th 
November, 1886, entitled, “ Will Culture outgrow 
Christianity ?” 

The article was occasioned by a eau on the 
subject, addressed to the students of Manchester 
New College, by Professor Upton. The writer 


says: 


‘* While Professor Upton chooses strong ground when he uses 
the very conception of Evolution to refute the view that this 
process should have produced a religious being only to dis- 
appoint cruelly all the religious instincts it had fostered, he 
seems to us to ignore in some degree the strength of the evidence 
that for some time back Culture has been so far outgrowing 


The 
ultimate 
triumph of 
Christianity 
certain. 


The state of 
mind 
among the 
cultured 
classes, 


Professor 
Upton’s 
address. 


The 
speculation 
on the 
subject, 


44 


The 
considera= 
tions pressed 
on the man 
of culture. 


The effect 
upon him, 


Will culture 
outgrow 
Christianity? 


The Present Conflict with Unbelies. 


ee a 


Christianity as to deprive a much larger portion of the cul- 
tivated world of its Christian faith than ever was deprived of 
that faith by culture, at least since the revival of learning.” 


Contrasting the days of Butler with our own, the 
writer in the Spectator says, referring to the former, 


“ Tt was less culture than cynicism that paralyzed Christiar 
feeling.” 


And goes on to add: 


‘* But now it may be said in a very real sense that it is culture — 
which endangers Christianity ; that the consciousness of the 
wideness of the field of knowledge, of the number and minute- 
ness of the difficulties in the way of conviction, the daunting 
uncertainty that not even the most learned man can survey, 
much less grapple with, the multitude of the considerations 
which may be fairly and honestly said to bear directly on the 
truth or falsehood of the Christian creed. Libraries may be 
collected on but one aspect of the question ; philology, scholarship, 
critical learning be heard on one great class of questions ; 
philosophy, psychology, physiology, put in their claims to a 
hearing on another. Then comes science with the @ priori 
improbability—or if it be very rash, it will say impossibility— 
of the Christian story ; and then finally, the student of the 
mythologies and of the various superstitions of the different 
savage tribes claims to have his account of the matter heard, in 
order that the believer may learn from it a legitimate self- 
distrust. Amidst this wilderness of evidence of all kinds, the 
man of culture not unnaturally gets dazed and paralyzed by all 
these cross-claims on his judgment, and so it happens that in 
his mind Culture tends to outgrow Christianity. In relation to 
all aspects of it, he finds in himself a number of half-matured 
thoughts and half-finished trains of reasoning, and his mind 
becomes a mass of suspended judgments and postponed investi- 
gations. Is it or is it not likely that Culture will outgrow 
Christianity? It can hardly be denied that in our own age 
culture has frequently outgrown the political doctrines of the 
last age, and the social conditions on which the cohesion of 
society rested ; and that in many cultivated minds Nihilism- 
Socialism, Anarchism have been the result while in a very 


Lhe Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


45 


ae 


much larger number of cultivated minds a deep despair of ever 
attaining to certainty solid enough to convince the multitude 
has superseded all the old and firmly-established convictions. 
Will not the same process unsettle still more effectually religious 
conviction? Will any clear guiding belief grow out of the 
crowd of suspended beliefs in which the tournament of contro- 
versialists has ended.” 


In answer to these questions of the writer in the 
Spectator, we may say for ourselves, viewing the 
conflict as a merely intellectual one from its merely 
human side,—without for one moment granting that 
the weight of argument on any position in dispute 
is on the side of unbelief, or that Christian faith 
will ever become extinct, even for a time,—religious 
convictions may become more unsettled, and it is 
possible enough that no clear guiding belief may 
grow out of the crowd of suspended beliefs; un- 
belief may become more generally prevalent—may 
win what may be regarded as a triumph for a 
time. At the worst it will only be for a time, but 
its temporary wider spread is, to say the least, a 
possibility. We can point to great names in the 
ranks of culture, literary and scientific, that are 
Christian; we can point to many hopeful signs at 
our universities and elsewhere; but making all 
allowance for the hopeful signs, facts do not 
justify the most sanguine anticipations concerning 
the earlier and nearer issue of the present conflict 
with unbelief in the cultivated classes, especially 
among those who may be so described in the 
higher and stricter sense, and whom the writer in 


Unbelief 
may become 
more 
prevalent. 


Scientific 
and literary 
Christians of 
eminence, * 


46 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


The state of 
the masses. 


ist leaders. 


The ibility 
possi 

of their } 
being won 


ower to 
Secularism. 


the Spectator had probably in view, rather than 
the educated classes generally. 

Touching the masses among whom the Secu- 
larists chiefly work, those who know their state 
of mind best tell us that, viewing them as a 
whole, and making all allowance for the measure 
of success which certain Christian agencies have 
had among them, their feeling in relation to 
Christianity is one of indifference, more than of 
positive unbelief—that they are prejudiced against 
the churches. A contingent of them, as we know, 


is actively opposed to all religion. The masses 


are specially open to the influence of the Secu- 
larist leaders, who identify themselves with their 
most advanced political aspirations and principles. 
The question is, Are they likely to be won over to 
the camp of positive, anti-theistic unbelief P 

We cannot see how, looking at their actual 
condition, and their practical relation to Christianity 
and to Christian agencies, the possibility of this 
can be denied. It would be gomg much too far 
to say that there is a likelihood of their going 
over in a body to the camp of Secularism. Much 
special effort is being put forth by churches, 
societies, and agencies of various sorts to win them 
to Christ and the Gospel. Never, perhaps, was 
more earnest thought and effort directed to this 
end; but as yet there are few signs of a general 
breaking-up of their indifference, of a general 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief. 


47 


abandonment of their prejudices, and a general 
disposition to accept Christianity. There is much in 
the spirit and efforts of the Christian community to 
excite hopes, but surely there is much in the state 
of the masses of the people to excite misgivings. 

The true state of the case should be fairly and 
fully looked at; if so looked at, the champion of 
Christianity and the herald of the Gospel will not 
be unmanned, but rather nerved for the conflict. 
Any under-estimate of the strength and resources 
of the foe, any exaggerated estimate or a too con- 
fident reliance on the human and material resources 
of the Christian Church, and any too sanguine 
anticipation of the speedy and complete triumph 
of the truth, are likely to lead to defeat and disap- 
pointment. The final triumph of the truth is certain, 
but the conflict may be long, and, judged by the 
numbers of avowed followers on either side, the 
fortunes of the fight may fluctuate. 

In one view it is not altogether satisfactory that 
at this time of day so many of the best and finest 
minds in the Church of Christ, are engaged 
in the defence of the truth against the assaults 
of unbelief, instead of being given to its procla- 
mation and exposition. It argues the existence 
of already widespread unbelief and still wider 
unsettlement in men’s minds. In another view 
it is a very hopeful sign, showing as it does that 
Christianity has champions who can meet on equal 


The facts 
should be 


ra 


The conflict 
may be long, 
its fortunes 


may 
fluctuate. 


An 
unsatis- 
factory sign. 


48 


The Present Conflict with Unbelief, 


tS SSSSSSSSSFNISNNSSIESRGnes 


What argu- 
ment can do. 


What is 
needed for 
salvation 
from sin, 


What is 
most to be 
desired. 


terms the foremost leaders of unbelief, and that 
the taunt of the Secularists, that the Gospel can 
be “preached, but not defended,” is unfounded, and 
encouraging us to believe that men capable of 
maintaining the faith in face of the fiercest opposi- 
tion will always be raised up in the time of need. 
The work of defending the faith can never be 
wisely neglected by the Christian Church; but it 
must ever be remembered that it can at best only 
confirm the believer, silence the gainsayer, and pro- 
duce intellectual conviction in the doubter. Some- 
thing more than argument is needful to bring men 
to heartfelt obedience to the faith, to save men 
from their sins, to overcome the inherited bias to 
evil native to the human heart, which leads to 
resistance to the truth of God, even the Gospel 
“received in the Holy Ghost, and in much assur- 
ance.” It will be a very hopeful sign when the 
need and the demand for apologetic work become 
less and less, and the need and the demand for 
positive and constructive work become more and 
more, because men, conscious of a darkness which 
no mere advance of knowledge can ever dissipate, 
and of needs which no human or earthly resources 
can ever supply, are disposed to learn of Him who 
is “the Light of the world,” and are hungering 
for “the Bread of Life.” 


THE EVIDENTIAL VALUE 


OBSERVANCE OF THE LORD'S DAY 


BY THE 


REV -G, F. MACLEAR, D-D., 


Argument of the Wract, 


—4< 4 


Tue force of the evidence in favour of a belief derived from 
public services contemporaneous with its origin, and uninter- 
ruptedly perpetuated throughout the body which holds it, is 
pointed out. The earliest evidence for the observance of 
the Lord’s Day is adduced. ‘The testimony of St. John and 
St. Paul on the subject, in the light of their nationality and 
training, and the significance of the term “‘ The Lord’s Day,” 
are examined. It is pointed out that the observance of the 
Day, though not enacted by a law in the Apostolic 
Church, yet grew up and made its way by the intrinsic weight 
of some overwhelming reason for it. The question, What 
was this reason? is answered, and the conclusion is arrived 
at that the historical fact of the Resurrection of the Lord 
alone affords an adequate exnlanation of its origin and 
observance. 


THE Evi{DENTIAL VALUE 


OF THE 


IBSERVANGE OF THE LORDS DAY. 


—VYorow— 


SECTION I. 


pe—=rAr has truly been observed that “no 


ea| evidence of the power and reality of 


va ae a belicf can be less open to suspicion 
"than that which is derived from 
public services, which, as far as all evidence reaches, 
were contemporaneous with its origin, and uninter- 
ruptedly perpetuated throughout the body which 
holds it.” Amongst these public services none is 
more striking than the observance amongst all 
Christian nations of “ the Lord’s Day.” 

11. However the observance of this particular 
day may have originated, here it is. It has lasted 
through more than eighteen hundred years. It 
has survived many storms and revolutions, During 
these centuries the most diverse political systems 
have been established and overthrown. Empires, 
dynasties, kingdoms have passed away. New 
worlds have been discovered. The very languages 


' Weatcott’s Gospel of the Resurrection, pp. 181, 1382. Kid. 3. 


The value 
of publie 
Services as 
evidence of 
the power 
and reality 
of a belief, 


The fact 
of the 
observance 
of the 
Lord’s Day. 


Its long 
continuance 


It survives 
all changes, 


Enactments 
with 
reference 
to the 
observance 
of the day. 


The 
obligation 
of the day 
recognized 
not ordained 
by the 
Council 

of Nicea, 


The Hvidential Value of 


which were spoken during the early period of these 
centuries have given place to others. Habits, 
manners, modes of thought, theories, opinions, 
philosophies have changed. But the observance 
of this day, “the first day of the week,” as a day 
set apart for religious worship, still survives, 
Except for a brief period of madness during the 
reign of terror in France, the observance has 
known no discontinuance, and has won for itself 
the reverent acquiescence of some of the greatest 
intellects the world has ever seen. 

m1. During these eighteen hundred years there 
have been various enactments put forth respecting 
the observance of this day. Passing over those of 
modern and medizval times, let us take one which 
is found amongst the decrees of the first Gicume- 
nical Council of Nicwa, a.p. 825. We find it laid 
down by the Fathers there and then assembled, 
that, 

‘*Forasmuch as some on the Lord’s Day bow the knee in 


prayer, as also on the other Days of Pentecost, for the sake of 
uniformity they now shall stand to offer their prayers to God.” ! 


tv. What is noticeable here is that the members 
of the Council, assembled as they were from the 
most diverse parts of the Roman world, yet make 
no doubt as to the obligation of this day. They 
do not ordain it. They do not defend it. They 
assume it as an existing fact, and refer to it quite 
incidentally for the purpose of regulating an indif- 


1 Council Nic. Can. xx, 


The Observance of the Lord’s Day. 5 
a EE ee Seta a Oto ol a eh Li oN 2 


ferent matter—the posture of Christian worshippers 
on this day. 

v. Four years previous to this Council, we find oe 
the Emperor Constantine, a.p. 321, laying it down ©*tantine. 
in an edict, which was to apply to Christians as 
well as Pagans, that there should be on the first 
day of the week a cessation from business on the 
part of functionaries of the law and of private 
citizens. The Emperor does not indeed call it the 
first day of the week. He terms it the “venerable 
Day of the Sun.” But he does not anticipate that 
his Christian subjects will misunderstand him, or 
object to the observance here prescribed. Nor tbc sfiay 
do we anywhere read of their doing so. They egos sy: 
acquiesce in the prohibition of business on this 
day, and therefore we may presume they deemed 
they had reason for doing so. The expression 
“Day of the Sun,” our Sunday, was quite familiar 
to the Christians in the times of the Emperor, and 
in this edict he calls the day by a name which, as 
it was in ordinary use, could not possibly offend 
his heathen subjects.1 What is worthy of remark pe het 
here is that, like the authors of the Nicene Canon, the dae al 
Constantine offers no word in defence of the obli- “4° 

*“Omnes judices urbanwque plebes et cunctarum artium 
officia venerabili die Solis quiescant.” ‘Let all judges and 
pecples of towns, and the duties of all professions cease on the 
venerable day of the Sun.” See Richard Baxter’s remarks on 


this decree in his treatise on Zhe Divine Appointment of .the 
_ Lord's Day, p. 41. 


6 


The Evidential Value of 


a 


The 
testimony 

of various 
bishops of 
the early 
Church to its 
observance. 


The 
testimony 

of Pliny the 
Younger, 


gation to observe the day. With them he equally 
assumes that this will be at once recognised. 

vi. Pursuing our course still further back we 
find, in the year a.p. 300, Peter, bishop of Alex- 
andria, saying, “We keep the Lord’s Day as a day 
of joy,”! and in a Synodical letter, issued in A.p. 
253, we have Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, mention- 
ing as a notorious fact the celebration of “ the Lord’s 
Day,” which is at once “ the eighth and the first.’’” 
Tertullian, speaking about fifty years before (4.D. 
200), of the solemnity of the Lord’s Day, calls it 
sometimes “Sunday,” sometimes “the first day 
of the week.”® About the year a.p. 170, Melito, 
bishop of Sardis, puts forth a treatise respecting the 
day, and Dionysius, bishop of Sardis, writing to the 
Church of Rome, mentions its observance quite 
casually and without any word of explanation. Ii — 
we go back thirty years, we come to Justin Martyr, 
who flourished in a.v. 140. He mentions the first 
day of the week as the chief and first of days, and 
states that on it is held an assembly of all who 
live in the cities and in the rural districts, on 
which the writings of the Prophets and the 
Memoirs of the Apostles are read.* Still earlier, 
about a.p. 112, Pliny the Younger, writing as 
governor of Pontus and Bithynia, to the Emperor 

1 Thy kupiakhy xapnoouvys jucpay &youer. 
2 See Dr. Hessey’s Bampton Lectures, Lect. i, id. 


3 Tertull. Apol. c. 6; De Cor. c. 3. 
4 Justin Martyr, Apol.i.; Dial. c. Tryph. 


The Observance of the Lord’s Day. i 

RIN SoBe SE ESE diate PULSE os Seat SCRA Seas Oe 
Trajan, describes the Christians as accustomed to 
meet together on “a stated day” (stato die) before 
it was light, for the purpose of worship. 

vil. The catena is thus fairly complete during 
the second century. From the letter of this 
heathen Proconsul it is but a step, whether we 
take the earlier or the later date of its composi- 
tion, to the Apocalypse of St. John, Writing from peste 
his place of exile to the Seven Churches of Asia St John 
Minor, he says without a syllable of comment or 
explanation, as though his meaning would be at 
once understood, “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s 
Day.’ But still earlier, in a letter writen by St. Cai hiyie 


Paul from Ephesus, a.p. 57, to the Church of tte Corin- 
Corinth, the Apostle says, “ Upon the first day of 
the week, let every one of you lay in store as God 
hath prospered him, that there be no gatherings 
when I come.” The authenticity of this letter is not 
denied by the most remorseless modern criticism ; 
and as he assumes that the Corinthians observe this 
day, so we find the Apostle observing it himself, 
Thus we read of his spending a week at Troas, and St. Paul’s 
when “on the first day of the week” the disciples Practice. 
were “‘gathered together to break bread,” “he 
discoursed with them.’ 

vil. Now what is very singular is that we 

1 Pliny’s Letters, xevi. 
‘Eyevouny év Tvetuars ev rH xupraxy juepe. Apoc. i. 10. 
& Acts, xx.'7, 


8 The Evidential Value of 


The never find the dedication of this day to religious 
observance 
oP oo worship made a matter of question or argument. 
Lord’s Day 


never made 


never made Ttis never elaborately defended against objectors. 
avrament in Lt is accepted without dispute by St. Paul, St. 
the Apos- 


tolic or sub- Luke, and St. John, by writers of the sub-Apostolic 


Apostolic 


age, DY ne, ABCs by Constantine in his imperial decrees, by the 
or the, Fathers of the Council of Nicza in their Canons. 
Spe I say the assumption of a valid reason for the 
observance of this day, without any explanation or 
laboured apology, is very remarkable. It is obvious 
that for some cause or other, it was deemed that the 
observance of the day could command an instinctive 
assent. The inquiry, therefore, naturally suggests 

itself, What were the grounds that justified it? 

SECTION II. 

See 1. Tuat its observance needs justification will 
Feestrena VT apparent on very little reflection. For St. Paul, 
Web ace who thus speaks of the “first day of the week,” 


St. Paul and : i 
st. Fauland and St. John, who represents himself as having 


been in the Spirit on “ the Lord’s Day,” had been 
brought up in the strictest principles of Judaism. 

u. Let us deal first with St. Paul. Finding it 
necessary on one occasion to defend himself against 
certain false teachers, who prided themselves on — 


The purity their purely Jewish extraction, he emphasizes with 


H b = © . > . 
descent, | particular minuteness the purity of his own descent. 


“Are they Hebrews?” he asks, and replies, ‘‘So 


The Observance of the Lord’s Day. 


am I. Are they Israelites? so am I. Are they 
the seed of Abraham ? so am I.”! On another 
occasion, writing to the Galatians, he describes 
himself as being “advanced in the Jews’ religion 
beyond many of his own age among his countrymen, 
being more exceedingly zealous for the traditions 
of the fathers.”? Once more addressing the men 
of his nation at Jerusalem, he says, “I am a Jew, 
born in Tarsus of Cilicia, but brought up in this 
city at the feet of Gamaliel, instructed according 
to the strictest manner of the law of our fathers.’ 
On yet another occasion he says, “I am a Pharisee, 
the son of Pharisees.”’* Thus St. Paul was a 
Hebrew of the Hebrews. 

uu. Next let us take St. John. Though he 
never was, like the great Apostle of the Gentiles, 
at one of the Rabbinical schools, yet he was a Jew 
of Northern Palestine, and while unacquainted with 
the glosses of tradition, he kept the old simple faith 
in the letter of the law. Once and again his zeal 
broke out against those who did not think as he did,® 
and against those who, like the Samaritan villagers, 
refused to treat his Master with hospitality.® In the 
Acts we find him keeping the feast of Pentecost,” 
frequenting the Temple, observing the Jewish hours 
of prayer, and conforming to Jewish usages.® 


FS) CO «XI ey) LO 
2 Gal. i. 14. R.V. * Acts xxii. 3. 4 Acts xxiii. 6, R.V. 


5 Mark ix. 38; Lukeix. 49. §& Luke ix. 54. 7 Acts fi, lh. 


8 Acts ii. 46; iii. 1. 


9 


His 
proficiency 
in the Jews 
religion, 


The strict- 
ness of his 
Jewish 

education, 


St. John— 
a Jew of 
Northern 
Palestine. 


His zeal, 


His 
conformity 
to Jewish 
usages, 


10 


The age of 
St. Sohn 
and 8t. 
Paul. 


The Puritan 
period of 
the Jewish 
Church, 


The Hvidential Value of 


iv. The writers, then, who first employ these 
remarkable expressions were of Jewish nationality, 
and had been brought up under all the influences 
that moulded the life of the Elect Nation. Now, 
undoubtedly it is true that the forefathers of the 
Nation had been unable to resist the spell of the 
various idolatries practised by the peoples lying 
around the Holy Land, and had neglected the 
observance of the time-honoured Sabbath. But 
the Jerusalem of the age of the Prophets was not 
the Jerusalem of St. John and St. Paul. It was 
necessary for the Prophet Isaiah to utter solemn 
warnings against the profanation of the day,’ and 
for Jeremiah and Ezekiel to denounce the violation 
of it as one of the greatest of the national sins.’ 
But during the dreary years, when the people went 
into captivity and “hanged their harps by the 
waters of Babylon,” all this was changed. The 
same impulse seized them under which the Christian 
world of the sixteenth century sprang back, over the 
whole of the Middle Ages, either to the Primitive 
or to the Apostolic times. The return from the 
Captivity marks the rise of the Puritan period of 
the Jewish Church.* 

v. After the times of Nehemiah and Ezra,‘ there 
is no evidence of the Sabbath being neglected by 


4 Jsa. lviii. 13, 14. 2 Jer. xvii. 21-27.; Ezek. xx. 12-24, 
8 Stanley’s Jewish Church, iii, p. 31. 
4 Neh. x. 31; xiii. 15-22. 


The Observance of the Lord’s Day. 


il 


the Jews, except by such as fell into open apostacy.' 
From the Gospels we learn that the Jews in our 
Lord’s time laid the most marked stress upon the 
observance of the Sabbath, and the minute rules 
imposed respecting it, and the slightness of the acts 
whereby its sacredness could be impaired, receive 
constantly recurring illustration. The nation 
might be opposed and apparently crushed by the 
stern power of Idumzean or Roman rulers, but the 
slightest effort to enforce customs not authorized by 
the Mosaic law was the signal for an outbreak of 
zeal and fanaticism which bore down everything be- 
fore it, and from which even the boldest statesmen 
recoiled. The Maccabeean generals at first declined 
to fight against Antiochus or to defend themselves 
on the Sabbath, 


‘* Because,” says Josephus, “they were not willing to break 
in upon the honour they owed the Sabbath even in such dis- 
tresses, for our law requires that we rest on that day.” ? 


Later leaders, Mattathias and Jonathan, allowed 
their countrymen to repel, but not to attack an 
enemy on that day. The Jewish historian, how- 
ever, bears the most complete testimony to the 
strictness with which the day was observed,? and 
the sneers of Horace, Juvenal, and Persius‘ bear 


11 Mace. i. 11-15, 39-45. 2 Jos. Ant. xii. 6, 2. 
* Jos, “Ant:-xiv.6)2 3 xvit. 9), 2: 
4 ‘*Hodie tricesima Sabbata. Vin tu 
Curtis Judzis oppedere ?”’—Hor. Sat. i. ix. 69. 
** To-day is our thirtieth Sabbath. Do you desire to offend the 
circumcised Jews?” 


The stress 
laid on 
Sabbath 
observance 
in our 
Lord’s time, 


Opposition 
to the 
enforcement 
of customs 
not author- 
ized by the 
Mosaic law. 


The 
testimony 
of Josephus 
to the 
strict 
observance 
of the day. 


12 


The Lvidential Value of 


The 
observance 
of the 
Sabbath the 
pledge of 
the Jew’s 
nationality, 


Excitement 
produced by 
placing the 
Roman 
eagle on 
one of the 
portals of 
the temple, 
and by the 
introduction 
of the 
military 
standard 
into Jeru- 
salem. 


out the statement that wherever the Jew went, the 
observance of the Sabbath became the most visible 
pledge of his nationality. 

vi. So great, indeed, was the re-action after the 
return from the Captivity, so intense the readiness 
to resent the slightest departure from the enactments 
of the law, that the Idumzan Herod could not set 
up in the theatre the representations of the victories 
of Cesar, or place the Roman eagle on one of the 
portals of the Temple without producing a violent 
outbreak of popular excitement. On another 
occasion, the Roman governor Pilate, under cover 
of night, ventured to introduce the military stand- 
ards into Jerusalem.! In the morning the populace 
awoke to the consciousness of this insult to their 
strongest prejudices. Abstaining from all violence, 
they sent a deputation to the governor at Casarea, 
intreating him to remove the standards. For 
days the ambassadors crowded his pretorium; and 
when Pilate brought out his troops to overawe and 
disperse them, they flung themselves with one 
accord upon the ground, and there remained im- 


** Quidam sortiti metuentem Sabbata patrem 
Nil preter nubes et cceli numen adorant.”—Juvenal Sat. xiv. 96. 
“ Some, whose lot it is to have a father paying respect to Sabbaths, 
Worship nething except the clouds and the divinity of the sky,” 
and Ovid A. A.i. 76, ‘‘ Cultaque Judeo septima sacra Syro”— 
‘* And the festival of the seventh day observed by the Syrian 
Jew ;” Persius Sat. v. 184, ‘‘ Labra moves tacitus recutitaque 
Sabbata palles,”—‘“ You move your lips in silence and turn pale 
at the circumcised Sabbath.” 
1 Jos, Ant. xv. 8, 2. 


The Observance of the Lord’s Day. 


moveable for five days and as many nights, declaring 
with vehemence that they were ready to die rather 
than sanction any infringement of their law, so 
that in the end Pilate was constrained to withdraw 
the obnoxious emblems.! Later still, the insane 
edict of Caligula, demanding that he should receive 
divine honours, and that a golden statue of himself 
should be placed in the Holy of Holies,? while 
in other provinces of the Empire it met with little 
or no resistance, excited amongst the Jewish nation 
the most violent hostility. The polished Athenians 
sighed to see the heads of some of their noblest 
images struck off, and the trunks carried to Rome, 
to be united to the features of a barbarian Emperor. 
But it was a sigh for the insult offered to art, taste, 
and feeling. It was nota sigh for the profanation 
of their religious principles which they resented.3 
The Jews, on the other hand, were ready to resist 
even unto blood any insult offered to their national 
faith and the Mosaic law. 

vu. But what were the violations of the religious 
sentiment of the nation either actually carried out 
or attempted by a Herod, a Pilate, a Caligula, com- 
pared with the conduct of those who for the first time 
practically transferred the honour due to the ancient 
Sabbath to “the first day of the week?” What 


1 Jos. Ant. xvii. 3, 1, 2; Bell. Jud. ii. ix. 2-4, 
2 Philo in Flacc. c. 7. Leg. ad Caium 26; Sueton. Calig, xxii. 


® Merivale’s Romans under the Empire, vi. 45. 


18 


The hostility 
to the edict 
of Caligula, 


The 
profanation 
of their 
religious 
principles 
resented by 
the Jews. 


The 
violation of 
religious 
sentiment 
involved in 
the transfer 
of the 
honour due 
to the 
ancient 
Sabbath to 
the first day 
of the week. 


14 


The Kvidential Vatue of 


The Jewish 
training and 
practices 

of the 
innovators, 


Their 
disregard 
in one 
particular of 
the fondly 
cherished 
tradition 
of the 
nation. 
What the 
Sabbath 
was to the 
Jew. 


was the ignorant disregard of time-honoured 
scruples on the part of heathen rulers, compared 
with the startling practices of these daring innova- 
tors? They, at any rate, could not plead ignorance 
or unconsciousness of the popular feeling. Brought 
up from earliest childhood in the strictest observ- 
ance of the Mosaic law, they retained many of 
their religious customs They were found at the 
fixed hours of prayers joining in the Temple 
worship; they observed the great annual festivals,? 
they conformed even in minor points to many legal. 
and ceremonial enactments.. And yet, in one most 
momentous particular, they did not scruple to dis- 
regard the fondly cherished tradition of the nation. 
To the Jew the Sabbath was the weekly commem- 
oration of the rest of God after the Creation. 
“Remember,” said the Great Lawgiver, “that 
thou keep holy the Sabbath day. For in six days 
the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all 
that in them is, and rested the seventh day; 
wherefore the Lord blessed the seventh day and 
hallowed it.”* “Israel was the people to whom 
God had revealed the mystery of creation; that 
master-truth by which human thought is saved 
now as of old from the sin and folly of confound- 
ing God with his works. It brought before the 
mind of the Jew the ineffable majesty of the 


1 Acts i. 14; iii. 1, 2 Acts xx. 16. 3 Acts xxi. 26. 
4 Exod. xx. 3, 11. 


The Observance of the Lord’s Day. 


Great Creater, between whom and the noblest work 
of His Hands there yawns an impassable abyss. ” 4 
And yet, though no one could have felt the force 


of this more completely than St. Paul, he does not 7? 


scruple to run counter to the prejudices and feel- 
ings of his nation on the subject. 

vil. He seeks out his countrymen, it is true, in 
their synagogues ? on-the Sabbath, and there ex- 
pounds to them the Hebrew Scriptures; but when 
he celebrates a service of his own, what do we 
find? Take the case when he reaches Troas, and 
abides there seven days. What does he do? How 
does St. Luke’s narrative run? Does he say, 


**On the last day of his stay, Paul called the disciples to- 
gether to break bread, and preached unto them ?” 


Is this what we find? Instead, we read, 
‘*On the first day of the week Paul preached unto them.” 


When again he bids the Galatians and Corinthians‘ 
make a religious collection for the poor saints at 
Jerusalem, he directs that it shall be carried. out 
on the self-same day. 

1x. How comes it to pass that the first day of 
the week has already become the stated day of 
Christian assembling ® for breaking the Bread, for 


1 Liddon’s Easter Sermons, ii. 92. 
2 Acts xiii. 14, 42, 44; xvi. 13. ; xvii. 2.; xviii. 4. 
P Acta zx.i74 0771 .Cor,,, xvir, 2. 
See Hessey’s Bumptom Lectures, p. 40, 


15 


8t. Paul’s 
conduct in 
relation to 


His 
observance 
of the first 
day of the 
week, 

His 
instructions 
as to the 
collection 
for the 
poor to the 
Galatians 
and 
Corinthians 


The Evidential Value of 


receiving instruction, for collecting alms? Why 
do we never find the Apostle inculcating the 
carrying out of these duties on the seventh day? 
What motive had he for making or even conniy- 
ing at this change from the seventh to the first day P 
When we reflect on the traditions amidst which 


ate the Apostle had been brought up from his earliest 


years, on the force of the religious ideas which had 
been to him as the atmosphere he breathed, the 
fact that he acquiesces in the change and gives 
no elaborate explanation of it is very remarkable. 
That such a revolution of sentiment should have 
emanated from such a soil as Judaism is very 
startling. It calls for some adequate explanation 
consistent with its occurrence at the time it did, 
and at an historic epoch ot which we can assign 
the date. 
SECTION III. 


1. Bur there is something still more surprising. 
St. John speaks of himself at the outset of the 
Apocalypse, and says in the passage to which 
reference has already been made, “I was in the 
isle that is called Patmos, for the Word of God 
and the testimony of Jesus. I was in the Spirit 
on the Lord's Day.” 

u. What did he mean by this expression ? 
There is no real reason for doubting that by “the 


Lord’s Day” St. John meant what St. Paul terms 
1 Apoc. i 9, 10. 


ee ee ee ee 


The Observance of the Lord’s Day. 


“the first day of the week.”! But what is es- 
pecially noteworthy is the solemn and momentous 
name which St. John applies to it, and which the 
Christian Church in every age has agreed to bestow 
upon it. He calls the first day of the week 
fy Kupcaxy iyépa,? “the Lord’s Day,” and thus con- 
nects it by its very name with a Person. 

m1. What did he mean by this term? It is a 
very uncommon one. It occurs here, and here only. 
The adjective Kvptaxdg denotes “ belonging to a lord 
It occurs in two places only throughout 
the entire New Testament. It is found here, and 
St. Paul uses it in the eleventh chapter of his 
First Epistle to the Corinthians, where he calls 
the Eucharistic feast the “Supper of the Lord,” 
ro Kuptaxoy detrvove Now the name Kupie, Lord, 
is applied to Christ frequently in the New 
Testament. 

Thus (a) there are texts in which He is called 
Lord in the various acceptations of Master over 


or ruler.” 


1 Some indeed, as Eichhorn, understand the Lord’s Day to 
refer to Easter Day, but this is quite improbable. Others 
maintain that it means the Day of Judgment. But the great 
‘‘Day of the Lord” in this sense is expressed by 7 juépa Tod 
Kuptov, 2 Thess. ii. 2 ; or 7 juépa Kuplov, 2 Pet. iii. 10 ; or, the 
‘*Day of Christ,” quépa Xptorod, Phil. ii. 16; never by ) Kupiarh 
nuepa. 


2 Apoc. i. 10. ) Kupiaxh juépa = in Latin, dies dominica, from 
which in the Romance languages the first day of the week 
derived its name. Ital. Domenica; Span. Domingo; Fr. 
Dimanche. 


c 


17 


“*The Lord’s 
Day ” 
equivalent 
to the ‘‘first 
day of the 
week,”? 


He connects 
it with a 
person, 


It signifies 

‘belonging 
to a lord or 
ruler,” 


The name 
Lord 
applied to 
Christ in 
the New 
Testament, 


18 The Evidential Value of 


The sex.<. servants;' of prophet, or teacher.? Again (6) 

in W Y 

ae ey 

eae et gen is 80 called as One who has acquired a 
peculiar right to those over whom He exercises 
authority in virtue of the price which He has paid 
for men? 

Sek pie iv. But there is a still higher sense in which 
ord in the ‘ ; 4 
meheste an, Christ is Lord. Of the names of God, Jehovah is 
the most sacred and the most solemn. A Jew who 
believes in Judaism will not pronounce it. Those 
who read Hebrew with him are at once warned 
that they are expected to substitute for it the word 
Adonai. The name itself was long ago withdrawn 
from the popular speech of the nation, and even 
from their writings, till at length it lingered only 
in the mouth of the High Priest, and was only 
uttered by him on rare and necessary occasions, 
such as the Day of Atonement,> while as he 
uttered it, those who stood near cast themselves 
with their faces on the ground, and the multitude 
responded, ‘ Blessed be the Name, the glory of His 

Sienifieance Kingdom is for ever and ever.’® This Name, as 
Ichovah, applied to God, denotes that He is “the Eternal,” 
“the Self-existent,’ the great I am.? By the 
1 Matt. x. 25; xxiv. 45, 46. 
* Matt. viii. 25; xvi. 22; Luke ix. 54; x. 17,40; John xi. 12; 
xiii. 6, 9, 13; xxi. 15-17, 
$ Eph. vi. 9.; Col. iii. 24; iv. 1; Rom. xiv. 9. 
* See the little treatise of the Bishop of Derry on the Divinity of 
our Lord, p. 27. 
> Stanley’s Jewish Church, iii. 162. 


* Edersheim’s Temple Service,p.271. 7? Exod. iii. 13, 14. 


The Observance of the Lord’s Day. 
Septuagint writers it was translated Kuvpioc, 
Lord, and the translation was adopted by the 
writers of the New Testament, and applied to 
Christ so repeatedly that it became His usual 
designation. Thus St. Thomas, addressing Him, 
says, ‘My Lord and my God;”! St. Peter speaks 
of Him as “ Lord of all,’ ? ‘whose is the glory and 
the dominion unto the ages of the ages ;”? and St. 
Paul affirms that whereas He was originally, before 
His Incarnation, ‘‘in the absolute form of God,” 
“God blessed for ever,’® as the reward of His 
humiliation ‘“‘God gave unto Him the Name 
which is above every name, that in the Name of 
Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven 
and things on earth, and things under the earth, 
and that every tongue should confess that Jesus 
Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.’’ ® 

v. Now it is a word recalling this Name, 
surrounded by all these august associations, that 
St. John does not scruple to apply to the first day 
of the week, when he says he was in the Spirit 
on the Lord’s Day. He not only connects the day 
with a Person, but that Person is One, with whom 
Divine attributes could be associated, and would 
be so associated by those who read or heard the 
term he employs. 


1 §t. John xx. 28, * Acts x. 36. *1 Pet. iv. 11. 
* Phil. ii. 6, év poppy Oot drdpxwy, see Bishop A note 
on the force hers of popph and tmdpxwy, 
® Rom. 1x. 6. 6 Phil. ii. 11; vomp. Acts il. 36; Rom. x, 9. 


19 


The 
rendering 
of the name 


in the 
Septuagint 
and the New 
Testament, 


This name 
recalled by 
St. John’s 
use of the 
term ‘‘ The 
Lord’s 
Day.” 


20 


No day 
ever kept 
by the Jews 
in honour 
of a single 
person. 


The breach 
with the 
past in 
advancing 
the claims 
made for 
the Lord’s 
Day. 


The Evidential Value of 


vi. But there is still something to be added. 
It is true that the Jewish nation had days for 
commemorating great and rare passages of Divine 
Providence in their past history. But what single 
day had the Jews ever kept in honour of any 
particular person, however holy or exalted ? Where 
is to be found any trace of the celebration of a day 
in honour of Abraham, the father of the faithful ; 
or of Moses, the great law-giver; or David, the 
founder of the royal line; or of Judas Maccabeeus, 
the restorer of the national glories? ‘True it is 
that they had days on which they commemorated 
mighty deliverances and signal marks of the Divine 
favour. But on which of these had their thoughts 
ever been directed to a single Person, with whom 
they could associate, as indicating His day, words 
which, whether we take tkeir lower or their higher 
sense, had been ever associated with Deity ? What 
powerful and constraining motive could have 
induced men trained in Judaism to detach them- 
selves from every association of the past, and pass- 
ing by the honour due to the time-honoured 
Sabbath, advance higher claims to observance for 
a day hitherto unheard of in connection with sacred 
memories ? 

vii. Had St. John defended the expression with 
a long and laboured apology it would not have been 
so surprising. The necessity of the case would seem 
to have called for it. But we have not a word of 


The Observance of the Lord’s Day. 


explanation, not a syllable of defence. He does 
not assume that his readers will be the least sur- 
prised at it, or take offence at his use of it. Art- 
lessly, fearlessly he mentions it in the most inci- 
dental manner. The expression falls from his pen 
so casually and unconsciously that we almost 
forget what it implies. The boldness of the claim 
made for the day, that it could be connected with a 
Person, and that He could be for some reason en- 
titled to the “ Ineffable Name,” which his country- 
men could not even pronounce, passes all conception. 
They to whom the writer was chiefly addressing 
himself, knew and felt that the Jewish covenant 
was the most sacred thing in the universe, and the 
Sabbath one of its most characteristic institutions, 
and yet without a single word of explanation he 
speaks to them of another day, which he does not 
scruple to consecrate by a name of sacred and 
mystical meaning, and to associate with a person. 
Are we not justified in asking, Did something occur 
on the first day of the week to the Person thus 
commemorated, which could justify its being termed 
His day? If there was something, the application 
of the term is in some degree accounted for. If 
there was not, its use by St. John remains an in- 
soluble enigma, 


21 


The 
expression 
used by 8t. 
John with- 
out apology 
or defence 
and in an 
incidental 
manner. 


The views 
and feelings 
on the 
subject of 
the Sabbath 
of those to 
whom S8t. 
John wrote 
did not lead 
him to 
explain, 


How is St. 
John’s use 
of the 
phrase to be 
accounted 
for? 


The 
agreement 
of the 
Churches 
that the 
Lord’s Day 
was the 
Day of 

the Lord 
Jesus, 


St. John’s 
connection 
with Jesus. 


His call by 
John the 
Baptist. 


This 
obedience to 
the Baptist’s 
testimony 

to Christ. 


The Evidential Value of 


SECTION IV. 


1. Wo, then, was this Person? The answer 
to the question will not be disputed. All the 
Churches, Western and Oriental, agree with un- 
broken unanimity that the day called by St. John the 
Lord’s Day, was the day of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

uu. How had St. John been connected with 
Him? Huimself the son, apparently the younger 
son, of Zebedee and Salome,! natives of Northern 
Galilee, he had been brought up in the simple 
Jewish faith of the simple-hearted people of the 
neighbourhood of the Lake of Tiberias. Devoted 
to his father’s pursuits as a fisherman on the 
Lake,* he yet shared the passionate longings and 
enthusiastic hopes of his countrymen as regards the 
coming of the Messiah. When the voice from the 
wilderness proclaimed his Advent, St. John at once 
responded to that voice, and moving southwards, 
ranged himself amongst the Baptist’s disciples. 

11. But he did more than this. Though simple 
and unlettered,? and unskilled in the traditions 
and speculations of the schools, he had grasped 
with singular power the spiritual import of the 
Baptist’s message. He no sooner heard the mys- 
terious words, “Behold the Lamb of God,” than 
he obeyed the sign and followed his new Master. 4 


? Mark xy. 40; xvi. 1, compared with Matt. xxvii. 66. 
® Mark i. 19. 5 Acts iv. 13. * Jolin i. 37. 


——————e ee le ee ee ee ae ie ll ee”): — ce _ 


The Observance of the Lord’s Day. 


23 


iv. After remaining with Him for a time, he 
seems to have gone back to his old employment. 
From this he is again called to become a fisher 
of men,’ and to form one of the Apostolic body. 
In this body he forms with his brother James and 
St. Peter ‘the chosen three,” who at the raising of 
Jairus’ daughter,” at the Transfiguration,? and in 
the Garden of Gethsemane,t are admitted into 
nearer relationship with the Lord than the rest. 
But in this group, though St. Peter takes the lead, 
it is St. John who is nearest and dearest to the 
Lird, “the disciple whom Jesus loved.”? On more 
than one occasion, as has been already indicated,® 
he displays loyal and true though undisciplined 
zeal, and reveals the ardour of his Galileean temper, 
and his burning love for his Master. 

v. On the occasion of the last journey to Jeru- 
salem, Salome, as the mouth-piece of her two 
sons,° begs that they may sit, the one on the 
Master’s right hand, and the other on His left 
in His kingdom. This reveals, in spite of his close 
relationship with Christ, the earthly ambition of 
the son of Zebedee, and the fact that he had 
failed to comprehend the nature of His kingdom. 
But it is important. For it makes manifest the 
sort of kingdom to which he is looking, and the 
sense in which he would at this time have inter- 

1 Matt. iv. 19; Luke v.1-11. ® Mark y.37. % Mark ix. 2." 
* Matt. xxvi. 37. ° See above p.9. © Matt. xx. 20; Mark x. 36. 


Called to be 
a fisher of 
men, 


His nearness 
to the Lord, 


His burning 
love to Him. 


His views 
of Christ’s 
kingdom, 


24 


The sense 
which St. 
John would 
have 
attached to 
the term 


“‘ the Lord’s 


Day.”’ 


The 
Crucifixion 
of Christ. 


The 
testimony 
of Tacitus 
Suetonius, 
etc. 


The Evidential Value of 


preted such an expression as “the Lord’s Day.” 
He would have regarded “the Lord’s Day” 
meaning the day on which the Master, to whom 
he was so devotedly attached, did actually assume 
the sceptre and ascend the throne, to which in 
His Messianic dignity He laid claim. 

vi. But did his Lord assume a sceptre or ascend 
a throne? Did He, as an earthly sovereign, place 
one of the sons of Salome on His right hand, and 
the other on His left ? We will not seek an answer 
from any Christian writer. Tacitus, the Roman 
historian, shall reply to the question. We turn to 
the xv. Book of his Annals, and the 44th chapter. 
He is describing the burning of Rome in the reign 
of Nero, and the circulation of a rumour that it 
was brought about by an Imperial order— 


** To get rid of the report,” he writes, ‘‘ Nero fastened the guilt 
and inflicted the most exquisite tortures on a class hated for 
their abominations, called by the populace Christians.” 


Then he adds— 


“ Christus, from whom the name had its origin, suffered the extreme 


penalty during the reign of Tiberius, at the hands of one of 
our procurators, Pontius Pilatus.’’ 


vir. Has the fact thus recorded ever been dis- 
proved? Has its accuracy ever been invalidated ? 
Never. The reign of the Emperor Tiberius has been 
described not only by Tacitus, but by Suetonius, 
and other authors of good repute, and the cruci- 
fixion of Him, whom St. John called his Lord, is 
mentioned by them as a matter of common notoriety, 


~~ iS ee eS eS ee ee ee ] 


ee Le eee 


The Observance of the Lord’s Day. 


20 


and gives point to many a cruel and opprobrious 
epithet directed against His followers.! 

vit. The mention of the reign of the Emperor 
Tiberius fixes the chronological limits of the date of 
this Crucifixion, and of the infliction of the extreme 
penalty which Tacitus records. It cannot be pushed 
much further back than the year, a.p. 30, and 
this is the year generally accepted as its date. 
It is important to notice this. It places us in dis- 
tinetly historic times. It is not a period hidden 
in the mists of fabulous ages. It is a period of 
which we know a great deal. It had its archives, 
its registers, its monuments. We can examine 
them and cross-examine them, and the statements 
of Tacitus relate to the actions of one of the most 
practical people the world has seen, at the most 
practical period of their history, when their roads, 
their bridges, their baths, their aqueducts were 
scattering the memorials of those who erected them 
in all parts of the world. | 

1x. Does St. John anywhere deny what Tacitus 
records? Nowhere. What the Roman historian 
_ mentions in a single paragraph, he proclaims where- 
_ ever he goes. In his own narrative of his Master’s 
_ life, it is described with the minute particularity 
of a diary. Three other Evangelists also give 
equally full descriptions. However condensed their 


1 Comp. Lucian, de Morte Peregrini c. 11.; Origen ¢. Celsum 


vii. 40; Arnob adv Gentes, i. 36. 
* See Canon Liddon’s Bampton Lectures, viii. 475. 


St. John 
gives a full 
account, 


26 


None of the 
evangelists 
practise any 
concealment 
with refer- 
ence to the 
death of 
Christ. 


St. John 
was at the 
Oross, 


The 
Epistle of 
Pliny. 


The Evidential Value of 


accounts may be in recording other portions of our 
Lord’s life, here they agree to relate fully every 
detail. Without attempting to conceal a single 


particle of its shame, the writers record carefully — 


the fact of their Master’s death. One of His 
disciples, they tell us, had betrayed Him to his foes. 
One of them, and he one of the chosen three, had 
basely denied that he ever knew Him. Where was 
St. John? He was by His cross. Where were 
the rest? They had forsaken Him and fled 
This is his own account of the matter in his own 


Gospel. He neither hides nor disguises, he neither — 


palliates it, nor excuses it. With singular openness, 


with unexampled particularity, he tells us the — 


story of the cowardice and faithlessness of his 


companions. What interest he had, or others who — 


have told the story with him, in describing the 
actors as worse than they really were, it is difficult 
to see, and it is impossible to understand. 

x. But there is still another document to be put 
in, which has been already alluded to, and which, 
like the testimony of Tacitus, comes to us not from 
a Christian but from a heathen writer. About the 


year A.D. 112, the younger Pliny,” then acting as 


governor of the province of Pontus and Bithynia, 
informs the Emperor Trajan of the appearance 


1 Observe the singular force of St. Matthew’s words, xxvi. 56. 
* Pliny’s Epist. ad Traj. xevi. 


The Observance of the Lord’s Day. 


27 


— Re Noes STE cere, seer rere ee Ce LE ae a 


within his province of a new and strange super- 
stition, which 


“had already affected many of all ranks, and even of both sexes, had 
caused many of the temples to be almost deserted, the sacrifices to 
cease, and the sacrificial victims to find few purchasers.”’ 


Respecting the members of this strange sect he 
had, after inquiry, discovered 


“‘that they were accustomed to meet together on a stated day 
(stato die) before it was light, and to sing hymns to Christ 
as to a God, and to bind themselves by a sacramentum, not for any 
wicked purpose, but never to commit fraud, theft, adultery ; never 
to break their word, or to refuse, when called upon, to deliver up 
their trust.” 


x1. What is worthy of note here is that the 
celebration of a particular day by the Christians, 
for of these Pliny is speaking, had become so 
marked as to impress the heathen with its dis- 
tinctive character as a “status dies,” and that this 
day was the first day of the week, the Lord’s Day, 
is indisputable. The votaries of this strange super- 
stition sang hymns to Christ “as to a God.” The 
day therefore was regarded as a day of festal joy 
and thanksgiving. 

xu. But what reason could they have given for 
singing on this day hymns in token of joy and 
thanksgiving ? Had not the Christ in whose name 
they met together been crucified ? How comes it to 
pass that they can salute Him as a God? Suppose 
any one of those early Christians had unfolded a 


scroll containing the memoirs which were then in = 


circulation of Him who died, what would he have 


Pliny’s 
reference 

to the 
Lord’s Day. 


The day 
shown to be 
one of 

joy and 
thanks- 
giving. 


How did 
it come to 
have this 
character ? 


28 


The Evidential Value of 


Anbeante found to have been the condition of His disciples at 


the disci 
at Christ’s 
death. 


Their state 
a few days 
after. 


The 
sacredness 
of the 
Mosaic 
Sabbath 
transferred 
to the first 
day of the 
week 


His death? According to their own confession, he 
would have read that they were stupefied with 
despair, and overwhelmed with disappointment ? 
Why then did they not try to efface all recollection 
of the terrible fact? Why did they not acknow- 
ledge that they had been the victims of delusion in 
accepting Him as their Lord, and own their un- 


toward mistake? Would not this have been ~ : 


natural? Is it not what we should have expected 


under the circumstances? How comes it to pass, — 


then, that instead of this, the self-same men, who 
confess their stupefaction at His death, are found, 


‘ 
’ 
4 


* 


after a brief interval, in the very city where there — 


would be the greatest disinclination to believe and 
the greatest solicitude to confute their statements, 
where the counterproofs were all in the hands of 
their enemies, proclaiming their belief in Him who 
had died the death of the malefactor and the slave, 
and electing a fresh member of their body in place 
of one who had betrayed Him ? ? 


x11. How comes it to pass that we find that after — 


the hopeless ignominy of the scene on Calvary, one 
like St. Paul could have been induced to transfer 


to the first day of the week the sacredness of the — 


Sabbath of the Mosaic law, and onit to celebrate the 

Kucharistic feast which, except on one supposition, 

commemorated the complete disappointment of the 
1 Acts i. 14. * Acts i, 21-26, 


Ae 


; 


The Observance of the Lord’s Day. 


hopes of the Christian body? What could have 
induced St. John to call this first day of the week 
the Lord’s Day, which could only, except on one 
supposition, serve to remind him and the members 
of the Asiatic Churches of a terrible and tragical 
reversal of all his expectations as to the setting up 
of his Master’s kingdom ? 

xiv. I say, except on one supposition. What is 
this? Except on the supposition that after the 
scene on Calvary, some event took place as certain 
and as historically true as the Death there enacted, 
glorious enough to transfigure the desolation of that 
scene, and powerful enough to turn all its sorrow and 
shame into joy and triumph. Tf such an event took 
place, then we can understand how St. John came 
to speak of the first day of the week as the Lord’s 
Day without adding a word of comment or explan- 
ation, as though he was alluding to a custom 
already well understood and already accepted by 
the Christian Church. If such an event took 
place, then we can comprehend why those votaries 
of a strange superstition in Pliny’s province, “sang 
hymns to Christ as a God,” and met on a fixed 
day to celebrate His memory. The words of 
Tacitus it is plain, though undisputed for their 
historical accuracy, cannot contain the whole 
account of the matter. They do not give us a 
shadow of a shade of reason for the mysterious 
observance of this particular day ever since 


29 


One 
supposition 
only can 
explain the 
facts. 


On this 
supposition 
we can 
understand 
St. John’s 
references 


Christ as a 
God.” 


oU 


The Evidential Value of 


aan ence peer ees ee ee a ee 


There was 
an event 
that 
explains 
everything, 


The burial 
of Christ. 


Apostolic times. The motive for the observance 
of the old Sabbath of the Law on the seventh day 
was clear and intelligible. It rested on a Divine 
ordinance. To alter it was unpardonable, unless 
there was an overwhelming. reason for making the 
change. But what was this reason? Did any 
event occur which made the change imperative P 


SECTION Y. 


1. Was there, I repeat, such an event P 

The Christian Church in every age has assured 
her children that there was. The author of the 
Epistle which contains the earliest allusion to the 
observance of “the first day of the week,” informs 
us that after the Crucifixion, He “who suffered 
under Pontius Pilate” was buried.1 Herein he 
agrees with the narrative of the four Evangelists, 
who, one and all, tell us that the holy Body of 
their Master was taken down from the Cross, and 
laid in a tomb hewn out of the rock in a garden 
hard by Calvary, in the possession of J oseph of 
Arimathea. 

i. They are careful to inform us—with what 
object it is difficult to see, unless it is true—that 
even this act of kindness and consideration was 
due not to any of the original Apostolic body, 
but to secret disciples and comparative strangers ? 


'1 Cor. xv. 4. * Matt. xxvii. 57-61; Mk. xy. 42-47- 
Luke xxiii. 50-56; John xix. 38-42. 


The Observance of the Lord’s Day. 


31 


a 


—Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus. The 
former, who had begged the Body of Pilate,! and 
the latter, who had brought a “mixture of myrrh 
and aloes”? to embalm it, made the necessary 
preparations, and conveyed the holy Body to the 
tomb, placed it in a niche of the rock, rolled a 
great stone against the entrance, and went their 
way. 

m1. In that tomb the Body lay during the 
Friday night that followed the Crucifixion, and 
the succecding Saturday and Saturday night, pro- 
tected by a guard of Roman soldiers, whose pre- 
sence had been requested by the Jewish rulers, 
from the intrusion alike of friends and enemies.’ 

1v. But early in the morning of the first day of 
the week * the stone was found to have been rolled 
away, and the sepulchre was discovered to be 
empty. If, however, the sepulchre was empty, 
where was He who had been laid therein? He 
was no longer there. He had risen, even as He 
had said. This is the unanimous testimony of the 
four Evangelists, and of St. Paul in his indispu- 
tably authentic letter to the Corinthians. This is 
the fact which, in spite of contempt and obloquy, 
the loss of caste, and the sacrifice of all that 
makes life tolerable, in spite of the bitterest hatred 


1 John xix. 38. 2 John xix. 39. 3 Matt. xxvii. 62-66. 
* Matt. xxviii. 1; Mark xvi. 2; Luke xxiv.1; John xx. 1. 
Each of the four Evangelists lays special stress on the fact that it 
was the first day of the week. 


The body 
in the 
tomb two 
successive 
nights, 


It was 
missing on 
the first 
day of the 
week, 


That 
Christ had 
risen unani 
mously 
testified by 
the four 
Evangelists 
an 

Paul, 


32 


The 
Resurrection 
transfigured 
she Cruci- 
fixion. 


His five 
appearances 
to chosen 
witnesses 
on the 
world’s first 
Easter Day. 


M. Renan’s 
axiom. 


The Hvidential Value of 


and the keenest persecution, the first disciples 
made it their business to proclaim as no less his- 
torical than their Master’s Passion. This is the 
event which, as they affirmed, transfigured the 
shame of the Cross, and turned its desolation 
into triumph. 

vy. But not only did He rise again on the first 
day of the week, but on the self-same day He 
revealed Himself on five distinct oceasions to 
‘chosen witnesses.’+ On this day He was seen 
by Mary of Magdala,? by the other ministering 
women,® by the two disciples journeying to Em- 
maus.! On this day He appeared to St. Peter? 
separately, and to the ten Apostles gathered to- 
gether in the Upper Room at Jerusalem.® He 
was seen indeed afterwards. But on no day is He 
recorded to have “ manifested Himself” so often. 
Never was He busier than on the world’s first 
Easter Day. No day would be associated in the 
memories of the first disciples with more frequent 
proofs of His triumph over death. No day by the 
record of more multiplied incidents established its 
claim to be ealled “the Lord’s Day.” 

vi. On the third day He rose again from the dead / 
M. Renan, in his Life of Jesus, lays down this 
axiom, “Great events have always great causes.” ? 

' Acts x. 41. * Mark xvi. 9, 10; John xx. 11-18, 
S Matt. xxviii. 8-10. * Mark xvi. 12; Luke xxiv. 13-35. 


52 Cor. xv.5; Luke xxiv. 34. °* Luke xxiv. 36-43; John xx. 19-23. 
7 See Godet’s Lectures in Defence of the Christian Faith, p. 128. 


ee 


eet 


eS. ee ee 


The Observance of the Lord’s Day. 


We have been seeking an adequate cause for one 
of the most striking phenomena of religious life 
amongst the most cultivated nations of the earth— 
the observance of the first day of the week as the 
Lord’s Day; and in the Resurrection of Christ 
we find it. In each of the Epistles to the Corin- 
thians, Galatians, and Romans—a group recog- 
nised as genuine by the most sceptical writers and 
eritics—the literal fact of tie Resurrection is 
regarded as the groundwork of the teaching of the 
Apostle Paul. He does not treat the fact ideally, but 
historically. He does not regard it as the embodi- 
ment of a great hope, or as the consequence of 
some preconceived notion of the person of Christ. 
On the contrary, he rests his hope on the fact, and 
deduces his view of Christ’s nature from the literal 
event of His rising again.} 

vir. Twice when our Lord was asked by the 
Jewish authorities for a miraculous sign in attesta- 
tion of His Divine claims, He referred those who 
pressed Him for such a sign to His resurrection 
from the dead. His other 1airacles were “ signs.” 
This was to be “the sign.” Ii He gave it, and 
rose triumphant from the tomb, we have the clue 
to what has taken place. If He did not, to what 
are we to look for the origin of the observance of 
the first day of the week as His day? When we 


The 
Resurrection 
of Christ 

an adequate 
cause of the 
observance 
of the 
Lord’s Day. 


The 
Resurrection 
the ground- 
work of 

St. Paul’s 
teaching. 


Our 
Saviour’s 
references 
to the Re- 
surrection as 
a sign, 


It is the 
clue to 
what had 
taken place. 


remember the soil in which the observance of the 


1 See Westcott’s Gospel of the Resurrection, p. 109, 
D 


The 
religious 
observance 
of the 
Lord’s Day 
by a man 
like St. 
John inecon- 
ceivable if 
Christ did 
not rise 
from the 
dead. 


No other 
reason could 
account for 
it. 


The Hvidential Value of 


day first took root, we have a measure of the 
depth of conviction which must have been 
needed to break with old and time-honoured 
associations, and bring about its institution at 
all. 

vil. If, after undergoing all He did on the hill 
of Calvary, He in whose honour the members 
of the strange sect in Pliny’s province of 
Bithynia, “sang hymns as to a God,” passed away 
like other men, and still “lies in the lorn Syrian 
town,” how is it conceivable that a man like 
St. John could have kept the Lord’s Day as one of 
religious obligation? What would have justified 
him in the countenancing the change of day 
from one already consecrated by the Divine law ? 
What could have induced him to sanction an 
institution which must have involved a shock 
to the prejudices of every pious member of his 
nation ? 

1x. What possible reason could he have urged 
as imperative for inaugurating or countenancing 
so unique an observance? Was it because the 
death on Calvary was a martyrdom? But what 
aspect of a martyrdom did it present to the 
eyes even of the most attached disciple of Him 
who died? It sealed no national cause. It 
crowned no patriotic rising. It recalled no daring 
enterprise vainly, though courageously, under- 


The Observance of the Lord’s Day. 


taken against the Roman power.! The bandits 
indeed, who died by the side of the Christ, were 
not improbably regarded by the bystanders as 
martyrs. We read of no mockery of them. 
We hear of no bitter gibes cast in their teeth. 
Blasphemy and scorn were reserved for Him who 
His death was the 
last drop in the cup of a complete and crushing 


occupied the central Cross.? 


disappointment of all the hopes and aspirations of 
His followers. Were they likely to enshrine in 
such an institution as “the Lord’s Day” what 
could only have been the tale of their defeat, and 
the memory of their error ? 

x. Was the honour due to the seventh trans- 
ferred to the first day of the week because He 
who died thereby inaugurated a new covenant 
between God and man? ‘The seventh day, indeed, 
as kept by the Jews did commemorate a covenant 
ratified by God through the hands of a Mediator, 
But what proof of the acceptance of His death as 
a sacrifice was vouchsafed if, in spite of all that 
He had said, death proved in the case of Christ, as 
in that of all others, ‘‘ the great conqueror?” Could 
the death on Calvary, if it stood alone, and nothing 
followed, be claimed as inaugurating a new and 


pvetter covenant? ‘A whole world of the most 


1 See the Evidential Value of the Holy Eucharist, the Boyle 
Lectures for 1879. 


* See Archbishop Trench’s Studies in the Gospels, pp. 298, 294. 


oH) 


Christ’s 
death a 
disappoint- 
ment of Ii: 
disciples’ 
hopes. 


No proof 
of an 
accepted 
sacrifice if 
Christ did 
not rise 
from the 
dead, 


36 


The Kvidential Value of 


The earliest 
beginnings 
of the 
observance 
of the 
Lord’s Day. 


Its early 
observance 
unintelli- 


gible 
without the 
Resur- 
rection. 


Divine ideas,” it has been said, ‘‘ lies in our seeing 
aright the distinction between the Sabbath and the 
Lord’s day!” And yet that distinction came in 
a moment to the Twelve! Within nine days after 
the Voice had been heard saying, “ I¢ is finished ; 
Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit,” 
we trace the earliest beginnings of the observance 
of the first day of the week.?, But on what pos- 
sible ground did the Apostolic body meet again on 
that day, if, after disappointing every hope they 
had ever cherished, their Master died, and was no 
more seen? What valid answer to the question is 
there, if nothing distinguished the first day of the 
week from all others ? 

x1. The early observance of the Lord’s Day, 
whether we reflect on the period when it began, 
or the previous training of those who first accepted 
it, or the renunciation of old beliefs which it 
unplied, or the total and overmastering change of 
thought and feeling in reference to a time-honoured 
institution like the Sabbath, which it involved, 
remains, and for ever must remain, an absolutely 
unintelligible phenomenon without the fact of the 
Resurrection. It can be accounted for neither by 
an imaginary death nor by a visionary resurrection. 
A visionary resurrection runs up in the last analysis 
into a fraudulent resurrection, connived at by the 


1 Professor Milligan’s Lectures, p. 68. 
*Comp. John xx. 26, “And after eight days again the disciple 
were within.”’ 


The Observance of the Lord’s Day. 


most passionate teachers of the duty of veracity. 
The observance of this day is tvo solid a fact to 
repose on a foundation of mist. A “splendid 
guess,” a “vague but loving hope,’ the dream of 
an enthusiast, the vision of credulous disciples— 
these will not account for an objective fact as 
indubitable as the institution and continued ob- 
servance through so many centuries of a day so 
peculiarly designated as the Lord’s Day. They 
will not bear the weight of the superstructure 
they have to support. 

x1. The Resurrection, on the other hand, by 
the fact of the absence of any human agent as 
its author, takes its place on a level with the 
most prodigious of miracles—that of Creation. To 
summon into life and to recall to life are two acts 
of the same nature. ‘Creation is the victory of 
Omnipotence over nothingness ; the Resurrection 
is the victory of the same power over death, which 
is the thing most like to nothingness that is known 
to us.”! Science has done wonders, and in the 
world of science much has been accomplished to 
justify the words of Sophocles, 


‘* Many the things that mighty be, 
And none is mightier than man.” ? 


But no man of science cherishes even the distant 


' Godet’s Lectures, p. 43. 

* Sophocles’ Antig. 332: 
TIOAAG 7d Sed, Kovdty drvOperou 
Sewdrepov wéAtt. 


The 
observance 
too solid a 
fact to 
repose on @ 
foundation 
of mist. 


The 

miracle of 
Resurrection 
on a level, 
with 
Creation. 


The 
Resurrection 
a creative 
act of the 
first order, 


Links 
the first 
Creation 
with the 
new 
creation, 


The 
Resurrection 
alone 
explains all 
the facts 
connected 
with the 
Lord’s Day. 


The Evidential Value of 


eee ee 


hope that he can undo the work of death, or keep 
death indefinitely at bay. The Resurrection is u 
creative act of the first order. It cannot stand as an 
isolated fact. He who said, “I have power to lay 
down My life, and I have power to take it again,” 
spake as never man did or could speak. By His 
taking again His life He proved that He was more 
than man, that He was—Gop. He linked together 
the first Creation, which is the primordial fact in 
the history of the Universe, with a new creation, of 
which He too is the Author and the Source. The 
old Sabbath, with its commemoration of rest after 
the works of the first creation, was swallowed up in 
the new creation wrought by the Lord of Life on 
the first Lord’s Day. The light streams in on the 
unique expression of the beloved disciple, and we 
see what he intended, we feel we “stand no longer 
at the foot of Sinai, but by the empty tomb in the 
garden outside Jerusalem.” 

xi. ‘Let us sum up. The Resurrection alone as 
an actual fact explains how it came to pass that 
the Lord’s Day 

(1) grew up naturally from the Apostolic times ; 

(2) gradually assumed the character of the one 
distinctively Christian Festival ; 

(3) drew to itself, as by an irresistible gravita- 
tion, the periodical rest, which is enjoined in the 
fourth commandment under the Mosaic Law ; 

John x. 18, 


The Observance of the Lord’s Day. 


(4) could as an observance be alluded to by 
St. Paul and St. John without a word of comment 
or explanation ; 

(5) and, though not enacted by any law in the 
Apostolic Church, could grow up and make its way 
by the intrinsic weight of its own reasonableness. 

xtv. With the fact of the Resurrection the early 
observance of the Lord’s Day runs smoothly into the 
context of the world’s history, and we can explain 

(1) How the startling change of religious senti- 
ment was brought about ; 

(2) How in spite of the shame of the Cross the 
Christian society could gather up and concentrate 
itself in adoration round the Person of Him Who 
died upon the Cross ; 

(3) How St. Paul could speak of Him, Who so 
died, as “the firstfruits of them that have fallen 
asleep,” for “as in Adam all die, so in Christ 
shall all be made alive.” } | 

(4) How He, whom the Apostle John saw in 
vision on the Lord’s Day, could say of Himself, “T 
am the First and the Last, and the Living One ; 
and I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever- 
more.”” 

(5) How since this event took place ten thou- 
sand times ten thousand Christian congregations 
have gathered themselves together on the Lord’s 


1 1 Cor. xv. 20, 22. * Apoe. i. 18. 


39 


With the 
fact of the 
Resurrection 
the Lord’s 
Day runs 
smoothly 
into the 
world’s 
history. 


40 


The Observance of the Lord’s Day. 


Professox 
Freeman’s 
testimony. 


No other 
account 
than the 
Resur= 
rection, but 
what is 
imaginary 
and 
invented, 
can explain 
the facts of 
history. 


Day in all quarters of the world, and have joined, 
if not in the words, yet in the spirit of the Hymn—- 


On this day, the first of days, 

God the Father’s name we praise, 
Who Creation’s Lord and spring, 
Did the world from darkness bring. 


On this day the Eternal Son 
Over death His triumph won ; 
On this day the Spirit came 
With His gifts of living flame. 
xv. Can anyone explain how otherwise these 
facts are to be accounted for? 


‘‘The miracle of miracles,” says Professor Freeman,? ‘‘ greater 
than dried-up seas and cloven rocks, was when the Augustus 
on his throne, Pontiff of the gods of Rome, himself a god to 
the subjects of Rome, bent himself to become the worshipper 
of a crucified provincial of his empire.” 


But why did he so “bend himself,” if that 
Crucifixion was followed by no event which trans- 
figured its shame? Why did he sanction the ob- 
servance of the first day of the week as a day of 
joy and triumph? Why have the most civilized 
nations of the world acquiesced in its observance P 
The question demands an answer. But without 
the Resurrection what answer can be given that 
is not imaginary merely, and invented ? 


1 Chief Periods of European History, p. 67. 


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tains an introduction to the study of the Scriptures, with a brief account of the books of 
the Bible, their writers, etc., also a synopsis of the life and work of our Lord, and complete 
history of the manners and customs of the times, etc. 


THE TOPICAL TEXT BOOK, 16mo. cloth, 292 pages, 60 cents. 


A remarkably complete and helpful Scripture text book for the topical study of the 
Bible. Usefulin preparing Bible readings, addresses, etc. 


THE BIBLE REMEMBRANCER. 24mo. cloth, 198 pages, 50 cts. 


A complete analyses of the Bible is here given, in small compass, in addition to a 
large amount of valuable Biblical information, and twelve colored maps, 


BIBLE LESSONS ON JOSHUA AND JUDGES. By Rev. J. 
GURNEY HOARE, M. A. 16mo cloth, 124 pages, 50 cents. 


FIFTY-TWO LESSONS ON (1) The Works of Our Lord; (2) Claims 
of Our Lord. Forming a year’s course of instruction for Bible classes, 
Sunday schools and lectures. By FLAVEL S. Cook, M. A., D. D. 
16mo. cloth, 104 pages, 50 cents. 


FIFTY-TWO LESSONS ON (1) The Bienes. and Titles of Our 
Lord; (2) Prophesies Concerning Our Lord and their Fulfillment. 
By FLAVEL S. Cook, M. A., D. D. 16mo. cloth, 104 pages, 50 cents. 


Extremely full in the matter of reference and explanation, and likely to make the 
user ‘‘search the Scriptures.’’ 


OUTLINE OF THE BOOKS OF THE BIBLE. By Rev. J. H. 
Brookes, D. D. Invaluable to the young student of the Bible as a 
‘* First Lesson” in the study of the Book. 180 pages. Cloth, 50 cents, 
paper covers, 25 cents, 


CHRIST AND THE SCRIPTURES. By Rev. ADOLPH SAPHER. 


16mo, cloth, 160 pages, 75 cents. 


To all disciples of Christ this work commends itself at once by its Bxesp of truth, 
its insight, the life in it, and its spiritual force.—Christzan Work, 


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Works or D. L. Moopy. 


By the strenuous cultivation of his gift Mr. Moody has attained toaclear and in 
cisive style which preachers ought to study; and he has the merit, which many more cul. 
tivated men lack, of saying nothing that does not tend to the enforcement of the particu- 
lar truth heis enunciating. He knows how to disencumber his text of all extraneous 
matter, and exhibits his wisdom asa _ preacher hardly less by what he leaves out than by 
what he includes. Apart from its primary purpose each of these books has a distinct 
value as a lesson on homiletics to ministers and students.—Tke Christian Leader. 


Bible Characters. 
Prevailing Prayer; What Hinders It. Thirtieth Thousand 


To the Work! To the Work! A Trumpet Call. Thir- 
tieth Thousand. 


The Way to God and How to Find It, One Hundred 
and Fifth Thousand. 

Heaven; its Hope; its Inhabitants; its Happiness; its Riches; 
its Reward. One Hundred and Twenty-Fifth Thousand. 


Secret Power; or the Secret of Success in Christian Life 
and Work. Seventy-Second Thousand. 


Twelve Select Sermons. One Hundred and Sixty-Fifth 
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The above are bouud in uniform style and price. Paper covers 30 cents: cloth, 
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Daniel, the Prophet. Tenth Thousand. Paper cover, zoc. 
cloth, 40c. 


The Full Assurance of Faith. Seventh Thousand. Some 


thoughts on Christian confidence. Paper cover, 15c,; cloth, 25¢. 


The Way and the Word. Sixty-Fifth Thousand. Com- 
prising ‘‘Regeneration,” and ‘‘How to Study the Bible.” Cloth, 25c.; 
paper, I5c. 
How to Study the Bible. Forty-Fifth Thousand. Cloth, r5c. 
paper, 10c. 
The Second Coming of Christ. Forty-Fifth Thousand. 
Paper, 10c. 
Inquiry Meetings. By Mr. Moody and Maj. Whittle. 
Paper, 15¢. 
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Published in small square form, suitable for distribution, or inclosing in 
letters. 35 cents per dozen, $2.50per hundred. May be had assorted or 
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Any of the above sent postpaid to any address on receipt of price. 
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* MISSIONARY PUBLICATIONS - 


REPORT OF THE CENTENARY CONFERENCE on the 
Protestant Missions of the World. Held in London, June, 1888. 
Edited by the Rev. JAMES JOHNSTON, F. S. S., Secretary of the Con- 
ference. ‘Two large 8vo. vols., 1200 pages, $2.00 net per set. 


An important feature in this report, lack of which has prejudiced many against reports 
in general, is the special care taken by the Editor, who has succeeded in making the work 
an interesting and accurate reproduction of the most important accumulation of facts from 
the Mission Fields of the World, as given by the representatives of all the Evangelical 
Societies of Christendom. 

And another: The exceptionally complete and helpful indexing of the entire work in 
such a thorough manner as to make it of the greatest value asa Reference Encyclopedia on 
mission topics for years to come. 


THE MISSIONARY YEAR BOOK FOR 1889-90. Containing 
Historical and Statistical accounts of the Principle Protestant Missionary 
Societies in America, Great Britain and the Continent of Europe. 

The American edition, edited by Rev. J. T. Gracry, D.D., of Buffalo, embraces 
about 450 pages, one-fourth being devoted to the work of American Societies, and will 
contain Maps of India, China Japan, Burmah, and Siam; also a language Map of India 
and comparative diagrams illustrating areas, population and progress of Mission work. 
This compilation will be the best presentation of the work of the American Societies in 
Pagan Lands that has yet been given to the public. The book is strongly recommended by 
Rey. Jas. Jounston, F.S.S., as a companion volume to the Report of the Century Con- 
ference on Missions. Cloth, 12mo. $1.25. 


GARENGANZE: or, Seven Years’ Pioneer Missionary Work 
in Central Africa. By Frep. S. ARNOT, with introduction by Rev. 
A. T. Pierson, D.D. Twenty Illustrations and an original Map. 


The author’s two trips across Africa, entirely unarmed and unattended except by the 
local and constantly changing carriers, and in such marked contrast with many modern ad- 
venturers, strongly impress one to ask if another Livir.gstone has not appeared among us. 
Traversing where no white man had ever been seen before, and meeting kings and chiefs 
accustomed only to absolute power, he demanded and received attention in the name of his 
God, Cloth 8yo, 290 pages, $1.25. 


IN THE FAR EAST: China Illustrated. Letters from Geraid- 
ine Guinness. Edited by her sister, with Introduction by Rev. J. 
Hupson Taytor. A characteristic Chinese cover. Cloth 4to, 224 
pages, $1.50; boards, $1.00, 


CONTENTS. 
** Good-Bye!”’ Ten Days on a Chinese Canal. 
Second Class. At Home in our Chinese ‘‘ Haddon Hall,”’ 
On the Way to China. By Wheelbarrow to Antong. 
Hong-Kong and Shanghai. Life on a Chinese Farm. 
First days in the Flowery Land A Visit to the ‘Shun’? City. 
Opium Suicides amongst Women, Blessing—and Need of Blessing—- 


In the Far East. 
Rey. C. H. Spurcgon, writes: 
‘‘T have greatly enjoyed ‘Inthe Far East.’ God blessing it, the book should send 


armies of believers to invade the Flowry Land.”’ 
The author is to be congratulated fo, the taste and beauty with which these letters 


are now put into permanent form, . A full page colored map of China enhances this ad- 
mirable gift book. 


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Missionary Publications 
(Continued.) 


A CENTURY OF CHRISTIAN PROGRESS, and its Lesson, 
By the Rev. JamEs JoHNSTON, F.S.S., editor of ‘‘Report of the Mis. 
sionary Conference.”’ Cloth, 50 cents ; paper, 25 cents. 


Dr. A. T. Pierson, in December number of ‘Missionary Review,’’ mentions this as 
being one of the five most valuable books on the history of Mission work. 

Pastor Spurgeon says: ‘‘It is no common-place generalization, but real fact; and 
much of that fact was known to few of us, Buy the book,’? 


FOREIGN MISSIONS OF PROTESTANT CHURCHES. Their 
State and their Prospects. By Dr, J. MurrAy MITCHELL, M. A. 
16mo, cloth, 50 cents. 


This timely little work presents a wide general view of the field of Missions. Having 
shown what Missions have done, the author sets forth the state of the chief Pagan religions, 
the different modes of missionary action, and then, in an eminently practical way, discusses 


the actual situation, both as to the needs of the heathen and the mind and attitude of the 
Christian public. 


THE EVANGELIZATION OF THE WORLD. By B. BROMHALL, 
Secretary of the China Inland Mission. Large quarto, 242 pages, 10 
portraits and three maps. Bound in boards, net, $1.00. Bound in 
cloth, with handsome dies, net, $1.50. By mail, postage extra, 18 cts. 


“‘ This isa most remarkable book. . . Itis one of the most powerful appeals for 
Foreign Missions issued in our time, and altogether perhaps the best hand-book that exists 
for preachers and speakers in their behalf.”— The Church Missionary Intelligencer, 


OUTLINE MISSIONARY SERIES. 


By-Rev. J. T. GRAcry, D.D., editor of the American edition of 
“The Missionary Year Book,” 


INDIA. 212 pages, paper 50 cents; cloth $1.00. 


This volume contains an excellent colored Map of India, showing railroads and Promi- 
nent mission stations ; also a map of Burmah and mission stations ; also a Map showing the 


distribution of Languages of India ; also déagrams illustrating Lopulations and areas as 
compared with other countries. 


CHINA. 64 pages, price 15 cents. 


Rev, R. G, Wilder, says :—‘‘ Your ‘China’ isa gem. It must do great good.’ 

Rev. D. W. C, Huntington, D.D., says :—‘ I began to mark passages, but soon found 
that I should have to mark the whole book. Itisallcream, The information is worth ten 
times its cost. 

Miss Isabeila Hart, of Baltimore, says:—‘‘I could hardly have believed that so much 
could have been put, and put so expressively and strongly in so small a space. I can not 
express my appreciation of it,’’ 

“‘In its general account of Chinese life and history, it condenses the substance of 
hundreds of pages into a few graphic and eluquent paragraphs,’— The Gospel in adl 
Lands, New York. 


OPEN DOORS. 64 pages, price 15 cents. 


Those who are interested in missionary topics, as all ought to be, will find this little 
pamphlet affords a great deal of valuable information as to Christian opportunity in Africa, 
apan, Burmah, Mexico, South America, Korea, and the islands of the sea. Dr. Gracey is 
imself a former missionary, and is an authority upon the subjects upon which he writes. 
We strongly commend it to all. I¢ shows witha clearness, almost startling, the present op- 
portunities for Christian work. 


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4 
’ 
J 
. 


5 y z 2 a : 2 ] 
Popular Missionary Biographies. 
I2mo, 160 pages. Fully illustrated; cloth extra, 75 cents each. 

From The Misstonury 
Herald: 


‘“‘We commended this 
series in our last issue, 


Rev. C. H. SpurGzon, 
writes : 

“Crowded with facts f and a further examina 
that both interest and in- 5 \ eSoks lads ee venne wae 
spire, we can conceive of ff Ses eco | (/) : : 
no better plan to spread BaMiapembestiballegd [71 Sree the placing of this 
the Missionary spiritthan ff Mortar? IME MonisoNFarr es series of missionary books 
the multiplying of such gi Th TR ir in ail our Sabbath-schocl 
biographies; and we Bb VAAL i: Na Miavice 
would specially commend NS Tere beaee at Lene 
this series to those who. § somely printed and bound 
and are beautifully illus- 
trated, and_we are confi- 
dent that they will prove 
attractive to all young 
ct people,”’ 


have the management of 
libraries and selection of i; 
prizes in our Sunday §ij iz 
Schools.”’ uN 


SAMUEL CROWTHER, the Slave Boy who became Bishop o* 
the Niger. By Jesse PaGE, author of ‘‘ Bishop Patterson.” 

THOMAS J. COMBER, Missionary Pioneer to the Congo. By 
Rev. J. B. Myers, Association Secretary Baptist Missionary Society. 

BISHOP PATTESON, the Martyr of Melanesia, By Jess PAGE. 

GRIFFITH JOHN, Founder of the Hankow Mission, Central 
China, By Wm. Rosson, of the London Missionary Society. 

ROBERT MORRISON, the Pioneer of Chinese Missions. By 
Wo. J. TOWNSEND, Sec. Methodist New Connexion Missionary Soc’y. 

ROBERT MOFFAT, the Missionary Hero of Kuruman. By Davip 
J. DEANE, author of ‘‘ Martin Luther, the Reformer,’ etc. 

WILLIAM CAREY, the Shoemaker who became a Missionary. 
By Rev. J. B. MyeErs, Association Secretary Baptist Missionary Society. 

JAMES CHALMERS, Missionary and Explorer of Rarotonga 
and New Guinea. By Wm. Rosson, of the London Missionary Soc’y. 

MISSIONARY LADIES IN FOREIGN LANDS. By Mrs. E. R. 
PILMAN, author of ‘‘ Heroines of the Mission Fields,” etc. 

JAMES CALVERT; or, From Dark to Dawn in Fiji. 

JOHN WILLIAMS, the Martyr of Erromanga. By Rev. JAMES 
fa A 5 

HENRY MARTYN, his Life and Labors, Cambridge-India- Persia. 
By JESSE PAGE 

UNIFORM WITH THE ABOVE, 

HENRY M.STANLEY, the African Explorer. By ARTHUR MONTE. 
FIORE, F.R.G.S. Brought down to 1889. 

_ DAVID LIVINGSTON, His Labors and His Legacy. By ArrHur 
MONTEFIORE, F.R.G S. 

JOHN WICLIFFE and MARTIN LUTHER. By D. J. DEAnzg. 


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By-Paths of Bible Knowledge 


‘The volumes issuing under the above general title fully deserve suc- 
cass. They have been entrusted to scholars who have a special acquaint- 
ance with the subjects about which they severally treat.” —Acheneum, 


These books are written by specialists, and their aim is to give the 
results of the latest and best scholarships on questions of Biblical 
history, science and archeology. The volumes contain much informa- 
tion that is not easily accessible, even to those who have a large 
acquaintance with the higher literature on these subjects. 


15. Early Bible Songs. ie 
With introduction on the Nature and Spirit of Hebrew Song, by 


A. H. Drysdale M. A...... a Siard herstioe cmtae aia oy ee eae $1 00 
14. Modern Discoveries on the Site of Ancient Ephesus. 
By J.T. Wood, F. 8. A. Tiustrated: cco. teas. ce ee $1 00 


13. The Times of Isaiah. Cote 

As illustrated from Contemporary Monuments, By A. H.Sayce, LL.D. .8¢ 
12. The Hittites; or the Story of a Forgotten Empire. 

By A. H. Sayce, LL. D. Ilustrated. Crown, S¥0.....-sisa,.ash esata See 
11. Animals of the Bible. 

By H. Chichester Hart, Naturalist to Sir G. Nares’ Arctic Expedition 

and Professor Hull’s Palestine Expedition. Illustrated, Crown, 8vc $1 20 

10. The Trees and Plants Mentioned in the Bible. 


By W. H. Groser, B.Sc. Illustrated.... TM TG! 
9. The Diseases of the Bible. 
By Sir J. Risdon Bennetts 5. Posie dass cn cclh « aidenneienia 09 webaete aie aaa $1 00 


8. The Dwellers on the Nile. 

Chapters on the Life, Literature, History and Customs of Ancient 
Egypt. By E. A, Wallis Budge, M. A., Assistant in Department of 
Oriental Antiquities, British Museum. Illustrated.................. $1.9 

7 Assyria; Its Princes, Priests and People, 

By A. H. Sayce, M. A., LL. D., author of ‘*Fresh Light from Ancient 
Monuments,” “Introduction to Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther,”’ etc. 
Tlnsira tends ols d asx acta hie cl wre Noe cio 6 wn Wo eal mC eit ae ae 

6. Egyptand Syria. 

Their Physical Features in Relation to Bible History. By Sir J. W. 
Dawson, Principal of McGill College, Montreal, F. G.8., F 
author of ‘The Chain of Life in Geological Time,” etc. 
edition, revised and enlarged. With many illustrations............ $i 20 

5. Galilee in the time of Christ. 
By Selah Merrill, D. D., author of ‘East of the J ordan,” etc. With Map $1 00 
4, Babylonian Life and History. 

By E. A. Willis Budge, M. A., Cambridge, Assistant in the Depart- 

ment of Oriental Antiquities, British Museum, illustrated........ $1 20 
3. Recent Discoveries on the Temple Hill at Jerusalem. 

By the Rey. J. King, M. A., Authorized Lecturer for the Palestine 

Exploration Fund. With Maps, Plans and Illustrations........... - $1 0@ 
2. Kresh Lights From the Ancient Wenuments. 

A Sketch of the most striking Confirmations of the Bible from recent 
discoveries in Egypt, Assyria, Babylonia, Palestine and Asia Minor. 
By A. H. Sayce, LU. D., Deputy Professor of Comparative Philology, 
Oxford, etc. With fac-similes from photographs:..%...¢.8. ee 

1. Cleopatra’s Needle. 

History of the London Obelisk, with an Exposition of the Hiero- 

glyphics. By the Rev. J. King, Lecturer for the Palestine Explora- 
ton ‘Fund. . With. Mlustrations.).). 6. ooo dol cacee ccdces oolec kk Liceenee 


$1 20 


$1 20 


— 


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Important Missionary Publications. 


AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JOHN G. PATON. Missionary to the 
New Hebrides. Introductory note by Arthur T. Pierson, D.D. 
2 vols., 12mo., portrait and map, in neat box, $3.00. 
One of the most remarkable biographies of modern times. 


“T have just laid down the most robust and the most fascinating piece of auto- 
biography that I have met with in many a day. ... . It is the story of the 
wonderful work wrought by John G. Paton, the famous missionary to the New 
Hebrides; he was made of the same stuff with Livingstone.’”—T. L. CuyLer. 


“Tt stands with such books as those Dr. Livingstone gave the world, and 
shows to men that the heroes of the cross are not merely to be sought in past 
ages,”—Christian Intelligencer. 

THE LIFE OF JOHN KENNETH MACKENZIE. Medical 
Missionary to China; with the story of the First Chinese Hospital 
by Mrs. Bryson, author of ‘‘ Child Life in Chinese Homes,’ ete. 
12mo., cloth, 400 pages, price $1.50 with portrait in photogravure. 

“The story of a singularly beautiful life, sympathetically and ably written. 
... . Areally helpful, elevating book.’’— London Missionary Chronicle. 

“The volume records much that is fresh and interesting bearing on Chinese 
customs and manners as seen and vividly described by a missionary who had 
ample opportunities of studying them under most varied circumstances and 
conditions.’’—Scotsman. 

THE GREATEST WORK IN THE WORLD. The Evangeliza- 
tion of all Peoples in the Present Century. By Rev. Arthur T. 
Pierson, D.D. 12mo., leatherette, gilt top, 35ce. 


The subject itself is an inspiration, but this latest production of Dr. Pierson 
thrills with the life which the Master Himself has imparted to it. It will bea 
welcome addition to Missionary literature. 

THE CRISIS OF MISSIONS. By Rev. Arthur T. Pierson, D.D. 
Cloth, $1.25 ; paper, 35c. 

‘“We do not hesitate to say that this book is the most purposeful, earnest and 
intelligent review of the mission work and field which has ever been given to the 
Church.’’—Christian Statesman. 

MEDICAL MISSIONS. Their Place and Power. By John Lowe, 
F. R. C. 8. E., Secretary of the Edinburgh Medical Mission Society. 
12mo., 308 pages, cloth, $1.50. 


“This book contains an exhaustive account of the benefits that may, and in 
point of fact do, accrue from the use of the medical art as a Christian ageney. Mr. 
Lowe is eminently qualified to instruct us in this matter, having himself been so 
long engaged in the same field.’’—From Introduction by Sir William Muir. 

ONCE HINDU: NOW CHRISTIAN. The early life of Baba 
Padmanji. Translated from the Marathi. Edited by J. Murra¥ Mit- 
chell, M. A., LLD. 12mo., 155 pages, with appendix. Cloth, 75e. 


“A more instructive or more interesting narrative of a human soul, once held 
firmly in the grip of oriental superstition, idolatry and caste, gradually emerging 
into the light, liberty and peace of a regenerate child of God, does not often come 
to hand.”—WMissionary Herald. 

AN INTENSE LIFE. By George F. Herrick. A sketch-of the life 
and work of Rev. Andrew T. Prattt, M.D., Missionary of the A. B. 
C. F. M., in Turkey, 1802-1872. 16mo., cloth, 50c. 


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Important Missionary Publications 


(Continued. ) 


EVERY-DAY LIFE IN SOUTH INDIA, or, the Story of Coopoo- 
swamey. An Autobiography. With fine engravings by E. Whym- 
per. 12mo., cloth, $1.00. 


THE CHILDREN OF INDIA. Written for children by one of 
their friends. Illustrations and map. Small Ato., cloth, $1.25. 


‘“These are good books for the Sunday-School Library, and will help young 
people in missionary societies who desire to have an intelligent idea of the people 
in India whom they are sending their money and their missionaries to convert.” — 
Missionary Herald. 

HINDUISM, PAST AND PRESENT. With an account of recent 
Hindu reformers, and a brief comparison between Hinduism and 
Christianity. By J. Murray Mitchell, M.A., LLD. 12mo., cloth, 
$1.60. 


‘A praiseworthy attempt to present a popular view of avast and important 
subject.” —Saturday Review. 7 
GOSPEL ETHNOLOGY. With illustrations. By S. R. Paterson, 
PGs, A2mo, cloth.; $1.00. 


“ The first attempt to treat this subject from a thorough-going scientifie stand- 
point. A very powerful argument for the truth of Christianity. ”—English Church- 
man. 


‘A book to refer to for information not easily to be obtained otherwise.— 

Church Missionary Intelligencer. 

NATIVE LIFE IN SOUTH INDIA. Being sketches of the social 
and religious characteristics of the Hindus. By the Rev. Henry 
Rice. With many illustrations from native sketches. 12mo., cloth 
boards, $1.00. 

“Those who have heard Mr. Rice’s missionary addresses will be prepared to 
hear that this is a fascinating book.’’—Life and Work. 

CHRISTIAN PROGRESS IN CHINA. Gleanings from the writ- 
ings and speaches of many workers. By Arnold Foster, B.A., 
London Missionary, Hankow. With map of China. 12mo., cloth, 
$1.00. 


AMONG THE MONGOLS. By Rev. James Gilmour, M.A., London 
Mission, Peking. Numerous engravings from photographs and 
native sketches. 12mo., gilt edges, cloth, $1.00. 


““The newness and value of the book consists solely in its Defoe quality, that 
when you have read it you know, and will never forget, all Mr. Gilmour knows 
and tells of how Mongols live.’’—Spectator. 


EVERY-DAY LIFE IN CHINA. or, Scenes along River and Road 
in the Celestial Empire. By Edwin J. Dukes. Illustrations from 
the author’s sketches. 12mo., with embellished cover, $2.00. 


That China is a mysterious problem to all who ir verest themselves in its affairs 
is the only excuse for offering another book on the subject. ‘ 


NEW YORK. :: Fleming H. Revell Company : : CHICAGO. 


The “Northfield Books.” 


COLLEGE STUDENTS AT NORTHFIELD; or, A College of 
Colleges, No. 2. Conducted during July, 1888: Containing addresses 
by Mr. D. L. Moody, Rev. J. Hudson Taylor, M. D., Bishop Hendrix, 
‘Rev. Alex. McKenzie, D.D., Rev. Henry Clay Trumbull, D. D., Prof. 
W. B. Harper, and others. 


The “ Practical Talks’’ as given in report of last year’s gathering, the demand for 
which has called for a seventh edition, has induced us to publish an account of this year’s 
proceedings, none the less ‘‘ practical,’’ and we feel sure will be as fully appreciated. 


12mo, 296 Pages, Cloth, $1.00 net. 


Dr, A. T. Pierson writes: ‘‘ Admirable book. I deem it one of the best of all the 
practical helps issued by the press.’’ 


Dr. Joseph Cook.—'‘ It is well edited, well printed, and well inspired from on High. 
Is full of a Holy Fire ef spiritual zeal, which I hope to see spread far and wide.” 


President M. E. Gates, of Rutgers College, writes: ‘ The influence which has 
gone out on the College Life of this country, from the summer meetings at Northfield, is so 
potent for good, that I welcome the extension and perpetuation of that influence through 
this book. 


SEVENTH THOUSAND. 

A COLLEGE OF COLLEGES; or, Practical Talks to College 
Students. Given in July, 1887, by Prof. Henry Drummond, F.R.S.S., 
Rev. J. A. Broadus, D.D., Prof. Townsend, Rev. A. T. Pierson,D.D., 
Mr. D. L. Moody, and others. 


12mo, 288 Pages, Cloth, $1.00 net. 


“Of signal value.’”—Chautauqua Herald. 

‘* We commend this volume very cordially.”—Presbytertan Witness. 

*‘ The volume closes with a chapter of ‘nuggets’ from Northfield, which is no excep» 
tion, however, as the other chapters are equally rich in ‘ nuggets.’ ’’— The Independent. 


D. L. MOODY AT HOME. His Home and Home Work. 


Embracing a description of the educational institutions established at 
Northfield, Mass., together with an account of the various noted gath- 
erings of Christian workers at the place, and the most helpful and sug- 
gestive lectures, and the best thoughts there exchanged ; adding, also, 
many helpful and practical hints. ; 


12mo, 288 Pages, Cloth, Eight Illustrations, $1.00. 


The New Vork Jndependent says: ‘‘ There is nothing in the career of this remark- 
able man more striking than his work at Northfield.” 

The New York Zvangedist spoke most truly when it said: ‘* The public is unaware 
of Mr. Moody’s enormous investments at Northfield, that will pay him abundant interest 
long after he reaches heaven.”’ 


rs 


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